The Orchid Show Opens at the New York Botanical Garden

 Below is a short video about the 2011 New York Botanical Garden's Orchid Show:

New York Botanical Garden

The nation's largest and only curated orchid exhibition opened on Saturday, March 5th at the New York Botanical Garden, showcasing more than 5,000 orchid plants in a Broadway-style setting. "The Orchid Show: On Broadway" runs through April 25 and features more than 300 species and hybrid orchids from around the world.

For the first time, the setting of the exhibition is designed as a Broadway theater, in order to present the compelling nature of orchids, that includes an orchid stage, highlighting the astonishing variety of these plants in all colors, shapes and sizes.

"It is exciting to me to design this space in a theatrical way. The flowers are like actors on the stage. I provide the framework for the beauty of them," said the garden's Tony award-winning scenic designer Scott Pask. He and image maker Drew Hodges showcased thousands of orchids with theater-inspired set pieces at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. There, the proscenium arch of the Walter Kerr Theater and the promenade of the New Amsterdam Theater have been re-created. It is a rare display of the theater of horticulture, starring the divas of the plant world.

The question is, after knowing something about orchids and their cultivation, having actually seen some in the Amazon wild, and some in my mother's wild backyard, what is it about orchids that create passion? Why indeed are they often called the Divas of the plant world? Possible answers emerge if their history is contemplated. The earliest known orchids were from the Mediterranean region, and were named Orchis -- a reference to the Greek word for testicle, because of the flower's twin oval tubers. These and other orchids have been considered useful in medicine, but the only orchid of Epicurean value is Vanilla planifolia, the source of vanilla flavoring. This orchid was used by the Aztecs and became known in Europe shortly after the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Vanilla Orchid

Orchids were brought from the West Indies to Great Britain beginning in the 1700s; and by the end of that century, fifteen species were growing at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Growing and reproductive success was haphazard though, because the orchids were grown in hot, damp greenhouses with little air circulation.

As growing techniques improved, shortly before the middle of the 19th century, orchid growing became extremely popular among the wealthy, for a number of reasons that can certainly be associated with high end value today: the flowers were exotic, one of a kind, complicated and expensive to acquire, then to keep alive, and with all that, were dazzlingly beautiful.

Dendrobium Orchid

Orchids belong to a huge family of plants called Orchidaceae. What separates them from all other plant families is the way they package their pollen in small waxy bundles called pollinia, for collection by visiting insects. By this system, no pollen grains are lost. Instead, the insects carry pollen from one orchid to another; thereby fertilizing their flowers.

Cattleya Orchid

Hybrids are made by breeding between the species and also by combining two or more species and since orchids interbreed so readily, more easily than any other family in the plant kingdom, a multitude of hybrids is now available, to be purchased and to be admired.

The New York Botanical Garden's Orchid Show is one of the most popular of its events, mainly because so many admire these exotic, sexual, mysterious flowers. Some featured at this show include Paphiopedilum, also known as Slipper Orchids, because the unusual pouch-like shape of the labellum resembles a slipper, and Dendrobium, Cane Orchids, grown on a stalk, known for their pastel shades of pink, purple and yellow. Source : Luxist.com

Comments

[hala Salem]

C'est magnifique!!!!