History of Orchidology

Man’s association with orchids seems to have had its origin way back in the history of human civilization . There is evidence to show that in the Orient, orchids were cultivated even as early as 500 B.C. Nagano (1960)has reported that in the oldest book on Chinese philosophy , ‘Eki-Kyo’ (Book of Change), of which Confucius (551- 479 B.C) was a joint author, mention has been made of ‘Ian’ as the orchid is called in Chinese. Species of Dendrobium and Bletilla hyacinthine are described in the Materia Medica of the mythical emperor , Shen Nung (28 th Century B.C.) of China (Withner, 1959). But it is difficult to conjecture when exactly the Oriental man got enamoured of the beauty and fragrance of the orchid flower and started to cultivate it .To him the orchid was the symbol of everything graceful and feminine , noble and refined . Confucius is said to have remarked that acquaintance with good men is like entering a room full of fragrant Ian. The Javanese believed that their jewel orchids were bits torn from the jeweled cloak left behind by a fairy princess when she came to visit the earth and had to take off in a hurry because of the callousness of the people (Yeoh Bok Choon , 1970). To the Japanese their native Neofinetia falcate is Fuh-ki-ran-the flower of wealth and nobility.

In Greece ,Theophrastus (370-285 B.C.)the pupil of Plato and Aristotle ,came the orchid plant, while preparing the material for his book.’Enquiry into Plants’. The term ‘Orchid’ has its origin from the Greek word ‘Orchis’ meaning testicle, referring to the paired underground tubers of the European terrestrial orchid, which , in his fertile imagination.Theophrastus compared to the testicle of a dog. Later Diocorides, the Greek herbalist of Asia Minor, who lived in the first century A.D., adopted this name to be included in his ‘ Materia Medica’, where 500 species of medicinal plants were described, two of which were orchids . Dioscorides was a firm believer in the ‘Doctrine of Signature’, which proclaimed that a plant will bear on its body some indication of its use. The concept of the similarity of the orchid tubers to the testicle , developing in an age when the Doctrine of Signatures was prevalent throughout Europe, endowed the orchid plant with mysterious powers to enhance the sexual prowess and fertility in man. The people of Middle Ages even believed that orchid plants came up from the drops of semen which fell to earth in meadows where animals came together to breed (Schweinfurth , 1959). Thus to the European eye, the orchid grew to be a symbol of sex.
It is interesting that the orchid, which the Orientals worshipped as something ethereal , incited in the Westerners emotions totally different in nature. True , Japan and China had their graceful Cymbidiums and Dendrobiums , while the European native flora of orchids , comprised mostly of small, terrestrial orchids with obscure little heads of flowers , whose beauty was not of a caliber to inspire poetry. This is also the reason why the orchid came to derive its name , not from its spectacular flower, which today holds thousands in its circle of enchantment , but from the insignificant underground tubers possessed by a minority of orchid species.

The aphrodisiac properties of the orchid tuber must have had a very popular appeal to the people of the Middle Ages, since its fame spread to places far away from Europe . It is mentioned in several of the oldest Indian Pharmacopoeias (Puri, 1970), and even though any scientific basis to this theory has long since been refuted , people still continue to use it for the purpose.

After Dioscorides, the study of orchids which began for purely aesthetic purposes in the East and for medicinal purpose in Europe , was at a standstill for several centuries , till it was taken up again by the 16 th Century German Fathers of Botany in Europe , on a descriptive level . The described in great detail every plant they came across and when an abundance of such information had accumulated , crude attempts were made to classify these plants according to their similarities .

The first book to be written on Orchids was edited in Japan by Joan Matsuoka in the early 18th Century at the orders of the Ex- Emperor HiyashiYama . It was called Ran-Pin , meaning varieties of orchids and was published posthumously in 1772 (Nagano , 1960). But , while the interest the Easterners had in orchids was purely horticultural , in the west, the various morphological peculiarities of the orchid plant as well as its flower started attracting the attention of botanists . The age of descriptive botany was soon over and the science of systematics was born with Liannaeus (1707- 1778). By the end of the 18th Century with Olof Swartz orchids came to be recognized as a special group of plants. From then onwards the development of orchidology in Europe was rapid .

The main factor which added zest to the study of orchids at this time was the growth of empires , Portugese , Dutch ,French and British, in the various tropical countries . The variety and beauty of the exotic tropical epiphytic orchids, which were carried home by the Western tradesmen and missionaries from places like India , Burma , Malaya and the Tropical Americas and Java and Borneo, instantly attracted the attention of the horticulturists of Europe. The first attempts to grow there rare plants in hot houses were a dismal failure , mainly due to the dry heating methods employed to provide tropical climatic conditions for the plants, which deprived the atmosphere of moisture so essential for the growth of the orchid . But by 1820 , the dry heating method was replaced by heating by hot water pipes, and for the first time since their arrival in a temperate climate, the orchids began to thrive in their new sourroudings . This success in their culture started off a regular one way traffic in orchid trade between the Eatern tropics and the Western world. Opening of the Suez canal in 1869 helped to cut down the time for the transport of plants by ships and ensured that they would arrive at their destination in good condition .

Fortunately for the orchids, they were expensive to have and to keep . The fact that only the rich could afford to keep them, naturally enhanced their prestige and made them a symbol of social status. It came to be a fashion among the rich and the titled to patronise collectors, who plunged deeper into the humid tropical forests , in search of new and exciting species , which they faithfully dedicated to the memory of their benevolent patrons.

To cater to this surge of public interest in orchids , firms sprang up all over Europe and England , which did business exclusively in orchids. These firms sent their own collectors to various tropical countries and crate upon crate of orchids were shipped to Europe from the tropics all over the world. The only regrettable thing about the whole business was that the tropical forests got progressively stripped of their orchid flora and this went on to such an extent many countires were complessed to place restrictions on the export of native orchids.

The one important event that helped to check this wanton destruction of natural wealth in orchids of the tropical forests was the production of the first man-made interspectic orchid hybrid , in Calanthe in 1852. The idea occurred first to Dr. Harris of Exeter, upon whose instructions, Mr. John Dominy of Messrs. Veitch & Sons, crossed Calanthe masuca with Calanthe furcata . The hybrid flowered in 1856. Dominy’s success with other interspecific and intergeneric crosses, opened up innumerable possibilities of breeding new varieties of orchids .The idea that new species could be created in one’s own green house was tremendously exciting to the professional breeders as well as the amateurs. Within years, all possible combinations of interspecific and intergeneric crosses had been attempted , most of them with considerable success. Special hybrid concotions , into the composition of which , at least four different generic constituents have been added , were being flaunted on the bill –boards of orchid-breeding firms.

But this state of affairs posed new problems for the orchid breeder, the toughest of which was the difficulty in raising seedlings of hybrids. The absence of endosperm in the orchid seed and its necessary association with mycorrhizal fungi for purpose of germination made it a difficult material under artificial conditions. So attention was focused on how germination could be achieved with minimum possible loss of seed material . The first attempt towards the solution of this problem was provided by the French botanist Noel Bernard (1874-1911). He tried to germinate orchid seeds in a medium of sphagnum moss and compost into which he had introduced a culture of the fungi extracted from the roots of the mother plant . This produced some amount of success and was adopted by breeders for a time . But it was left to the American physiologist , Prof. Lewis Knudson of Cornell University (!923), to find a permanent solution to this problem ,which revolutionized the whole field of orchidology . He found that sugar is needed for the germination of orchid seed and after years of research, he suggested an asymbiotic method of germination for orchid seeds. He prepared a medium with agar base to which the necessary minerals and sugar were added, which replaced the necessity of the mycorrhizal fungus , and under aseptic conditions all the viable seeds germinated and developed into seedlings . This was the break the breeders were waiting for. The impetus this discovery gave to the hybridization and breeding of orchids was tremendous . The era of pure species was definitely at an end .
The orchid-breeders crossed another hurdle when, in 1960, Morel reported that he had produced a virus-free Cymbidium from the shoot apex of an infected plant. Further researches of Wimber (!963) perfected a method by which an indefinite number of plantlings could be obtained from a single shoot- tip. This discovery opened up vast possibilities of vegetatively propagating desired hybrid clones and producing large numbers of plants which are morphologically and genetically identical with their parent , and that too , within a short time. With the development of this method of meristem culture, the difficulties presented by the frequent infertility of hybrids were overcome.

Meanwhile a vast amount of knowledge had accumulated regarding special requirements of orchids and an almost perfect technique has been evolved for their culture. The nature of the media upon which to grow orchids, its water and other nutritional requirements , the temperature and relative humidity which will contribute to the optimum growth and flowering , were studied in detail and standard procedures evolved. To accommodate the plants in conditions as near to their natural habits, new models of glasshouses with all necessary attachments for temperature control, humidistats, evaporative coolers etc. were designed . Intensive researches were carried on the light required (in footcandles ) for each species to grow and have healthy blooms was assessed . By the turn of the century , all these and more of such information was readily available to the beginner , so that all he had to do was to buy a good pedigree hybrid , pot it and follow the instructions given in any of the standard orchid books, pot it and follow the instructions given in any of the standard orchid books , and lo there is the most magnificent bunch of flowers on his window-still! Very soon he becomes a keen orchid grower and learns how to get over some of the problems he will inevitably encounter as he adds to his collections.

With the increasing popularity of orchids among people , organizations also sprang up with the intention of bringing orchid-lovers together. In England , orchid craze was sufficiently widespread even as early as `885 to lead to a show meant exclusively for orchids , sponsored by the Royal Horticultural Society , and later to start an orchid journal , the ‘Orchid Review’, the first of its kind to make an appearance in the orchid world , which was edited by Rolfe in 1893. The birth of The American Orchid Society in Boston in 1921 heralded the appearance of several provincial societies , not only in the United States but all over the world. Almost every country which is not too arid or too cold to support the growth of orchids ,now has an Orchid Society to boast of . In the continent of Asia , Japan, Phillipines, Malaysia and Thailand have their own Orchid Societies each with a journal as its mouthpiece.

This surge of popular feeling towards forming groups , particularly in the Western countries , led to a feeling for the necessity of international understanding among orchid lovers . Thus in 1952 , Gordon W. Dillon , conceived the idea of a World Orchid Conference with the intention of bringing together under one roof, all leading orchidologists , orchid-breeders and orchid lovers to discuss their problems and share their knowledge. The first world Orchid Conference was held at St. Louis , Missouri and ever since these conferences are being held every third year in different parts of the world – Hawaii, London , Singapore, California, Sydney and Columbia . The last one was in 1979 at Bangkok with Dr. Rapee Sagarik, the renowned orchidologist as the general President.