Why are they called "orchids"?

With endless diversity of orchids, it's interesting that the name "Orchid" derives from a trait seen by very few members of the genus - that is of the appearance of the tubers of a handful of European terrestrial orchids, such as Orchis mascula, also called the "early purple orchid".

The name is a 'double whammy', just in case someone doesn't get the point. "Orchis" refers to testicle. Then there's the "mascula" species name. From 'The uses and misuses of orchids in medicine", "The Greeks referred to testicles as orchis, and Theophrastus (372–286 BC) named the orchids from that word, as the underground tubers of many European terrestial orchids resemble a pair of testicles. In his Enquiry into Plants, he reported that the orchids had medicinal properties." The article continues, "In the first century AD, Dioscorides, who was a Greek working as a Roman military physician, wrote his De Materia Medica, including two terrestrial orchids. He adopted and promoted the ‘Doctrine of Signatures’ whereby plants were used for medicinal purposes according to their resemblance to parts of the human anatomy, for example by shape or colour. Naturally this led to orchid tubers being used to heal diseases of the testicles, and to stimulate lust. Moreover if given to men as whole fat new tubers this was supposed to produce male progeny, and if the shrivelled old tubers were given to women, this should produce female children.

From wikipedia (as are the illustrations here), regarding the drink "Salep" that is made from ground tubers of Orchis mascula, "The Ancient Romans also used ground orchid bulbs to make drinks, which they called by a number of names, especially satyrion and priapiscus. As the names indicate, they likewise considered it to be a powerful aphrodisiac." also, "Of Salep, Paracelsus the famous toxicologist wrote: "Behold the Satyrion root, is it not formed like the male privy parts? Accordingly magic discovered it and revealed that it can restore a man's virility and passion" The concept that plant parts that resemble human parts, can be used medicinally to treat those human parts, is called "The doctrine of signatures", "a philosophy shared by herbalists from the time of Dioscurides and Galen."It was thought that divine signatures led to information about the plants, so that humanity would be guided to use those plants for medicines.

The flower itself looks rather plain at a distance, but up close has the typical appearance for orchid flowers.

Not only was it thought that orchids could treat "testicular conditions", the speculation was that they derived from animal sexual origins. Again from "The uses and misuses of orchids in medicine", " In the sixteenth century, Hieronymus Tragus (Jerome Bock) (1498–1554) decided that they must arise (owing to their testicular shapes) from the semen of birds and beasts when this fell to the ground. In 1665, Anthanasuis Kircher, in his Mundus Subterraneus, concluded that as bees arose from the carcasses of bulls, bee orchids must arise from the semen of bulls". Wow.


The closely related, and similar appearing, Orchis militaris, is/was used for the same purposes.

It appears to be a close relative, and carries the same genus name. The flower color may be different, although even the "Early purple orchid" appears to come in pink and white.


Quite a lovely flower, up close. Again, even though there is variation, it's obvously an orchid flower with a colorful lip (labellum).

Interestingly, a different type of mimicry does relate to a "birds and bees" situation. The similar orchid, Ophrys apifera, also a European terrestrial orchid, has a flower that male bees find looks so similar to female bees that they try to copulate with the flowers. They derive no nutrition from the flower, no nectar - just the bogus sexuality that the flower offers. The frustrated bee then flies to the next flower, thus transferring pollen as he again attempts copulation with a fake partner, an orchid flower pretending to be his hot date.

This trend of fakery is repeated frequently in the Orchid family, with many species around the globe luring insects into sexual encounters that benefit the plant but not the insect.

This was from wikimedia commons, labeled as "Ophrys fuciflora". I liked the illustration so included it here.

In medicine, the same words are still used today. "cryptorchidism" refers to undescended, and therefore hidden, testicle. "Orchiectomy" refers to removal of a testicle.

So, bottom line, is that when we speak of "Orchids" we are speaking of plants that are related to plants that had tubers that ancients thought looked like testicles. That's even though very few orchid species have tubers at all, and even though the properties of the tubers had nothing to do with human virility or reproduction.

orchid progress report

This spot is full sun for most of the day, except late afternoon. I had gradually adapted these orchids to full sun, but taking them out for a few hours at a time, especially on cloudy days. The I placed them on the North side of the house, where they get full sun except at the brightest time. Now they get full sun all day. These plants, Dendrobium nobile hybrids, Vaughnera, and a hybrid Cattleya, can take the full sun with no burning. In addition, Cattleya walkeriana seems to to fine in full sun.

This location is against the north side of the house. It gets morning and late afternoon sun only. I discovered that Oncidium hybrids sunburn with less than an hour of full sun. Most I returned into the house again. My South window is shaded when the sun is high in the sky, by the roof overhang, so they don't get as much sun even though this is a south window. All oncidium alliance orchids are kept mainly in that spot, although there is one in this group that is doing OK.


The Phalaenopsis are in the north window, indoors. They are doing well, growing healthy-looking new leaves. The leaves may be getting too much light, based on the maroon coloration, but they may just be a maroon-ish type leaf.

I do feel like I'm doing something right. Not only are they not dead, they are growing. Slowly, but I think that's par for the course with orchids.

I may cut a keiki off from a Dendrobium nobile and plant it. The original cane looks quite wrinkled and dried out, so maybe it's time. I think I'll do that now.

Orchids starting new growth

Still at a stage where I don't know if orchids will grow for me at not. I've noticed that novices like myself look for signs of life frequently. Is it planning to bloom? Is it growing? They grow slowly, so it's easy to feel like they are almost inert. A sign of life is very rewarding.

A few buds are starting to appear at bases of cattleya-type plants. New pseudobulb, but at this stage just buds. Still, they were not there before, so itlooks like this is a positive sign.

A few more buds. Iwanagaara Appleblossom, a Potinara, and and a Brasolaeliocattleya are all showing some new growth buds.

The next step, of course, is to nurture them into full size pseudobulbs, then to bloom.

Also an interesting and positive sign. When I repotted a purchased Cattleya walkeriana, there was a second tiny plant, with one leaf and a few tiny pseudobulbs. I repotted it separately. Here it is, now with a new bud. The leaf fell off - I think it was ready to go anyway. We'll see if this bud grows into a larger pseudobulb than the existing ones.

Iwanagaara Appleblossom "Fantastic". Still blooming. I'm impressed at how long the flower lasts.

Orchid starts & progress. Oncidium and Vappodes phalaenopsis (Cooktown Orchid)

Today was another homework day. No time for yard work. I did take some photos.

I've been wanting to write up on Dendrobium bigibbum, except it's now called Vappodes phalaenopsis. My friend gave me a start from her plant, so I don't have photos of the blooming plant. I identified it from web pictures, which look exactly like her plant.

(This drawing from wikimedia commons under Dendrobium bigibbum. Illustrator is Vera Scarth Johnson)

Here is the start, I imagine it was a keikei. That was about 3 months ago. It sat for 2 months, then started to grow from the point where the aerial roots are seen. So it's about doubled in size now. I take that as a message that I'm not killing it. Now it's responding with a small shoot from the base - cool! Currently the leaves look a lot like Epidendron leaves, but the botanical drawings of Dendrobium bigibbum also show similar leaves and stems. I had potted up the keikei in the same bark/perlite/peat medium that I use for other orchids, and it's been getting the same weekly/weakly fertilizer regimen as well. I will guess, it's 1 to 2 years from blooming.

The color is a bit darker purple, compared to this drawing. Source is Swiss Orchid Foundation, with drawing originally from Lucien Linden & Emile,
Lindenia Iconographie des Orchidées 1892 I edited the pic with a little color enhancement and cropped a little. Given over a century of fading, this editing may have brought the drawing back toward its original color.

Also from the same source and with a little electronic color enhancement. This was such a handsome print, I wanted to include it even though my plant won't be this color.

Dendrobium bigibbum is also called "the Cooktown orchid" and originates in NE Australia. Let's make it really confusing. D. biggibum was conflated with Dendrobium phalaenopsis, which has flowers somewhat similar to Phalaenopsis but is really distant from that genus. Since then this species has been renamed Vappodes phalaenopsis. So I shouldn't call it dendrobium after all, but that still appears to be the commonly known name. Unless you just call it "Cooktown Orchid." Per Wikipedia, "It lives in a wide variety of habitats ranging from coastal scrub on trees and rocks, to mangroves, riverine vegetation, rainforest, vine thickets, gullies in open forest and even swamps. It used to be prolific around Cooktown but is now rare in the wild, due to over-collecting by commercial collectors."

It's hard to find specific culture information - from the Cooktown orchids website, are a couple of items - "where they grow naturally they have monsoon downpours in the summer and can have no rain at all for 2 - 3 months in the winter." and "fertilise weekly and weakly (1 gram/litre) in the growing season, September to December [in Australia - so here probably March to June?], with a low level nitrogen fertiliser... change to higher level phosphorous and potassium fertiliser... in flowering season, January [in Australia] till the flowers drop. The plants make new growths, flower from those growths and set seedpods between September to April [in Australia] so frequent feeding is almost mandatory for best results."

This is the Oncidium that got it all started for me. No ID, my wild guess is "Gower Ramsey" but that may change if I can get a picture showing the pseudobulbs. I'm hoping a current tiny bud at the base of the newest pseudobulb on the original plant is a bloom spike. However, the last "bloom spike" turned out to be a new growth instead, which matured into a nice plump pseudobulb.

This may be due to my enhanced interest in orchids. It seemed to bloom fine with neglect, but now it's getting water and is in a brighter window, and getting weekly/weakly plant food, and the resultant pseudobulbs and leaves are shiny and lush. Maybe it needs neglect in order to bloom. We'll see.
OK, so this is the first of the starts to take off and grow. I've blogged on these Oncidium backbulbs before. They continue to grow, and are all producing lots of aerial roots that then find their way into the medium and become nonaerial roots, just like the parent plant. I think now they have progressed beyond being called "backbulb" and can now be considered actual orchid plants. If the parent plant blooms, then these might bloom in a year or two.

Here are the 2 smaller ones. One is in a clear plastic pot, so I can see roots as they develop. The other is in a clay pot. I can compare notes on how they grow in the 2 pot types. The plant in plastic is smaller but started much later as well.

Not pictured here are some "sort-of starts" of Cattleya. One is a piece of the Cattleya walkeriana alba, it has no leaves but is starting to grow a new growth. very gradual. The other is a group of 3 tiny, tiny plants that came with Jewelbox orange. When that plant arrived, I repotted it. There were 3 pieces that must have been in the same community pot when it was cloned, but didn't take off and grow. Those are in a sphagnum baggie. If they grow, I'll be impressed at the plant's resilience. If not, nothing really lost.

Water Barrel

I bought this a month or more ago. We've had lots of rain since then. However, I didn't have either the time, energy, or inclination to install the barrel. This is a 57-gallon unit, so will be good for obtaining small amounts of water, but not for storing large amounts for the entire garden.

It wasn't that much effort. The hardest part was creating a level spot with the blocks. I tried many times before feeling satisfied it was level.

It was amazing, I didn't lose any parts while the barrel sat uninstalled. Well, it took some time to find everything, but there it was.

The diverter unit is simple and clever.

Now we just need some rain. With my impeccable sense of timing, I now have the rain barrel installed at the end of the rainy season.

Water from half of the roof flows via this downspout, so it should fill quickly, once it rains.

This will be especially handy for giving freshwater to the hens, and having freshwater for orchids. According to my reading, orchids don't appreciate buildup of salts from tap water, so will benefit from fresh rainwater.

Once it rains.