WHERE ORCHIDS ARE AT HOME 
E. H. WILSON 
Assistant Director of the Arnold Arboretum; Author of “ Romance of Our frees,” “Aristocrats of the 
Garden,” “A Naturalist in Western China,” “Travel Tales of a Plant Collector,” and other works 
I. TROPICAL ORCHIDS OF THE OLD WORLD 
Part II, Orchids of the New World, will appear in June 
Visiting these Romantic Aristocrats of the Greenhouse in their Native Haunts in 
China, India, and Borneo—Five Thousand Flowers of Fascinatingly Variable 
Form Like Bees, Beetles, Slippers, Helmets, Miniature Swans, Moths, and Monkeys 
Editors’ Note: The annual meeting of the American Orchid Society with its first big exhibition of Orchids to be held in Horticultural Hall, Boston, 
Mass., May 8-n, renders very timely this comprehensive contribution of Mr. Wilson and offers unprecedented opportunity for the reader to see some of these 
arrestingly beautiful and bizarre natives of the Orient and Old World while their history is still fresh in mind. 
a RCHIDS are the aristocrats of the greenhouse and the 
most envied of tropical plants. Their cult has waxed 
enormously during the last three quarters of a cen¬ 
tury and they have their ardent devotees in every 
land. A collection of tropical Orchids and their hybrids is 
largely a hobby of the rich man, since their wants and mainte¬ 
nance are costly. Many of them are so rare as to be almost 
priceless and in a manner these are in the same category as 
masterpieces of painting, porcelain, and other art objects. 
The cultural requirements of many Orchids are exacting and 
the study of Orchid growing has brought into being a race of 
garden specialists devoted to them alone. Little by little their 
proper requirements have come to be understood; and this 
knowledge, together with the well-found modern glass-house 
structure, has made comparatively easy the successful growing 
of these remarkable plants. Hybridists in great numbers have 
worked on the family and to-day Orchid hybrids in cultivation 
are more numerous than the species. Moreover, many of these 
hybrids have better constitutions and finer flowers than their 
parents, and in consequence are more permanent plants in col¬ 
lections. But my theme is of the wildings, and beyond paying 
a hearty tribute of praise to the Orchid breeders of every land 
1 have nothing to do with the results of their skill. 
The Orchid family is one of the most natural and also one of 
the largest in the vegetable kingdom. Linnaeus, in 1753, knew 
only about a dozen exotic Orchids; whereas, to-day, fully 5,000 
species and more than 400 genera are known! They are most 
abundant in the tropics, but the family is universally distributed; 
one species, the little Calypso borealis being found as far north 
as 68° north latitude. 
In the temperate regions of this country are found many 
species including such lovely plants as Cypripedium acaule, 
C. spectabilis, C. candidum, and C. pubescens. In Europe and 
northern Asia, too, grow many interesting Orchids among them 
being Cypripedium calceolus, C. macranthum, C. japonicum, and 
C. tibeticum, all with large and showy flowers. Many species 
are native to the temperate parts of Australia; and not a few 
belong to South Africa where, on dripping rocks on Table 
Mountain, is found the wondrous Disa uniflora perhaps the 
most showy of all terrestial Orchids. 
In the cool regions of both the northern and southern hemi¬ 
spheres nearly all the Orchid species grow in the ground after 
the manner of ordinary plants, but in the tropics, where the 
great concentration of species occurs, nearly all grow epiphyti¬ 
cally upon trees; though not a few are found among humus on 
rocks and mountain tops. Comparatively few terrestial spe¬ 
cies are cultivated and, strange to say, when attempted the 
cultivation has been found more difficult than that of their 
epiphytic tropical relatives. A few, of which the Bird’s-nest 
Orchid ( Neottia nidus-avis) of Europe and northern Asia is a 
well-known example, are saprophytes having no leaves and 
living on decaying vegetable matter. A few are climbers; but 
it is, however, doubtful if any are true parasites. 
Orchids are especially remarkable for the curiously varied 
shapes and colors of their flowers which resemble all sorts of 
dissimilar objects such as a bee, fly, beetle, slipper, helmet, 
small monkey, moth, miniature swan, dove, cradle and so forth, 
and the relative sizes are extraordinarily different. Some like 
Liparis, the Tway-blades, have flowers so small as to require 
close searching to detect, while others, like the Cattleyas, have 
flowers 6 inches or more across. The flowers are of every hue 
from inconspicuous green through all the colors of the spectrum 
and of every conceivable shade. Nearly all emit an odor, and 
very many are extremely fragrant. The variability in the form 
of the flowers is considered an adaptation to insure cross pol¬ 
lination by insects and honey-loving birds. 
The flower is irregular in shape with six usually petal-like 
segments inserted above the ovary. The three outer ones, 
called sepals, and two of the inner ones, called petals, are 
often nearly alike; but the third inner segment, called the lip 
or labellum, differs from the others in form and in direction. 
Properly this lip should be at the top of the flower as it is in 
Disa uniflora; but usually it is at the bottom, being brought into 
this position by the twisting of the ovary. Opposite the lip 
and overhanging it in the axis of the flower is what is called the 
column which consists of 1, rarely 2, stamens combined with 
the pistil; the 1 to 4-celled anther or anthers being variously 
situated on the style itself. The pollen is rarely granular and 
free, being almost invariably glutinous or agglomerated into 
2, 4, or 8 masses termed pollinia which are fixed either directly 
or by means of a tiny stalk (caudicle) to a viscous gland below 
the anther. The style is produced at the top into a prominence 
or fleshy beak termed a rostellum. The seeds are minute, 
multitudinous, and easily dispersed by wind. So much for 
the flower-structure. 
Now a word or two about the plant in general. A feature of 
most Orchids is the storage tissues for reserves of water and food¬ 
stuffs. In many terrestial species, like Orchis itself, this ware¬ 
house is represented by two or more small tubers at the base of 
the stem and below the ground; in epiphytes, like Cattleyas and 
Dendrobiums and others, the aerial stems are thickened to 
serve the purpose and are known as pseudo-bulbs. In Phal- 
aenopsis and other genera the leaves are thick and leathery, 
and serve as storehouses. 
Again the roots of epiphytic Orchids are of three kinds, each 
fulfilling a separate function. In the first place, to fasten the 
plant to its support there are clinging roots which are insensi¬ 
tive to gravity. Secondly, the niche between the plant and 
its support, and the network formed by the clinging roots, acts 
as a reservoir for humus; and into this absorbing or feeding 
roots project. Finally there are true aerial roots which hang 
down in long festoons. The skin of these is colorless and per¬ 
forated and acts as a sponge to absorb water trickling down 
over the roots. The internal tissue is green as may be seen 
on wetting a root. Orchids have a host of peculiarities some of 
which will be mentioned later but the above may serve as a sort 
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