Why everyone’s talking about... Wild orchids
Britain’s wild orchids are at the height of their flowering season. What do we know about these special plants?
Although one of the largest families of flowering plants, with 28,000 species, only about 52 are native to Britain. Or make that 53: the Small Flowered Tongue Orchid hadn’t been seen here for years but was spotted on the rooftop garden of the London offices of a Japanese bank last month. The Lady’s Slipper Orchid, below, had been declared extinct in 1917, but was rediscovered 13 years later. It’s still Britain’s rarest wildflower, with the plants’ exact locations in the Yorkshire Dales kept secret – as it was over-zealous orchid-hunters who almost obliterated it in the first place.
So they are hard to grow?
It depends on the species. Many are pollinated by just one type of insect, with their distinctive, colourful flowers having evolved specially to lure them – something studied meticulously by Charles Darwin. But the Bee Orchid (which botanist Jack Wallington says ‘looks like a happy Pokemon’) is one of the UK’s most common because it self-pollinates.
Orchids have the world’s tiniest seeds, the size of a speck of dust, which makes them hard to cultivate. What’s more, they germinate only on contact with soil fungi and the first flowers don’t appear until five years later. But they can live to be 100. Orchids also have tuber-type roots that look like testicles.
Who says?!
The official family name Orchidaceae – first shortened to ‘orchid’ in 1845 – comes from the ancient Greek word for ‘testicle’. Also, the genus Cynosorchis literally means ‘the dog’s b ****** s’. Victorian writer John Ruskin hated such filthy connotations and tried to rename them ‘ophryds’. Their shape inevitably led to the roots being considered an aphrodisiac, ground to a powder and made into a hot beverage called salep, popular in England in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
Any other fun orchid facts?
Only one among the thousands of species has an edible fruit: vanilla. In the original James Bond books, M’s hobby was painting watercolours of wild orchids. One Madagascan species smells like champagne. And Peru’s monkey face orchid looks like… well, take a wild guess.