Orchids
The Ultimate Flowering Plants
By Sophia Gallo
Graceful and exotic, orchids are one
of the most appealing flowering
plants in the world. Thousands of
varieties in a wide assortment of shades
and shapes make them unique, while
the shape of their flowers prove Mother
Nature to be the greatest artist of all.
As one of the oldest flowering plants,
orchids can be traced back as far as the
Greek ages, where the elegant flowers
were considered aphrodisiacs and
were the main ingredients in many
love potions. Likewise, throughout the
Aztec empire, the vanilla orchid was
thought to promote strength and was
commonly mixed into their chocolate
drinks. By the mid-19th century, the first
orchids reached London by way of South
America. These plants immediately
became a hot commodity, as people
began collecting them because they stood
as symbols of wealth and were difficult
to come by. The graceful elegance of
these flowering plants was somewhat
tarnished by lust and greed, as entire
populations of orchids that grew in the
jungles of Central and South America
The lovely lady slipper orchid grows best near a sunny window.
were eradicated in order to accommodate
that vogue in Europe. Today, there are
more than 20,000 species and 110,000
different hybrids of orchid that vary in
size and coloration.
Growing orchids is part art and part
science, as they typically take five to
seven years to bloom from seed pods that
contain millions of their dust-like seeds.
They have three different types of roots.
The first, terrestrial roots, as you could
guess, grow on the ground, while the
lithophytes grow and develop on rocks.
The third type of roots is epiphytes,
which grow in the air using tree branches
for support, much like Spanish Moss.
These don’t require soil, as they pull their
nutrients from the atmosphere.
Twenty-thousand species are a lot to
choose from when picking your own
orchid; however, the phalaenopsis,
known as the “moth orchid” is said to be
the easiest to grow and get to re-bloom.
They require low light, preferably near
114 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015
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This classic Cattleya orchid
is called ‘Fireball’.