Orchids get their name from the Greek Orchis meaning “testicle” The word “Orchis” was first used by Theophrastus (372/371–287/286 B.C.) in his book “De historia plan tarun” (The natural
history of plants) is considered the father of botany and ecology. Orchids are cosmopolitan in distribution. Occurring in every habitat, except Antarctica and deserts.
The great majority are to be found in the tropics, most Asia, South America and Central America. They are found above the Artic Circle in Southern Patagonia and even on Macquarie Island, close to Antarctica,
About 800 to 1000 new species are added each year. All Orchid species are protected for the purposes of international commerce under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) as potentially threatened or endangered in their natural habitat except hybrids.
Orchids are truly flowers of superlatives. Even a complete layman in botany is awed by the beauty of orchids. No plant family has as many different flowers as the Orchid family. Most African Orchids are white, while Asian Orchids are often multi colored.
Some Orchids only grow one flower on each stem, others sometimes more than a hundred together on a single spike. Maxican Laelics and Indian dendrobiums, cymbidiums and vandas have played a major role in the development of modern Orchid industry in the world.
The basic orchid flower is composed of
• Three sepals in the outer whorl
• Three petals in the inner whorl
• However one of the petal, the medial petal is different from the others and is called labellum or lip
Most advanced Orchids have five basic features
1. The presence of a column : call gynostemium.
2. The flower is bilaterally symmetric
3. The pollen are glued together into the pollinica, a mass of waxy
pollen on filament.
4. The seeds are microscopically small (exception Disa & Vanilla)
5. The seeds can, under natural circumstances, only germinate in
symbiosis with specialized fungi.
