Orchids live on every continent except Antarctica. Though most are tropical plants, they are found from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America. Some could sit comfortably on your fingernail; others can reach 40 feet in height, and some vine-like forms can be 100 feet long. Modern Western interest in orchids began in the early nineteenth century when a British naturalist found some in Brazil, shipped them to the Glasgow Botanical Gardens, and they ultimately were brought to bloom by his colleague William Cattley. The Cattleyas, named after him, have over 100 species, and have become a source of fascination around the world.
Orchids pop up in surprising ways in popular culture and literature. I remember as a boy one of my favorite comic strips was Brenda Starr, who was in love with Basil, an eye-patched adventurer with a rare disease, held in check only by doses of the serum of the black orchid. Mystery aficionados no doubt remember Rex Stout's reclusive, corpulent detective Nero Wolfe, whose happiest hours were spent growing orchids in his Manhattan greenhouse (www.nerowolfe.org). In Marcel Proust's novel 'Remembrance of things past', Swann and Odette gently agree 'to do a cattleya', meaning to engage in loving activities. The name of the 2011 French action film 'Colombiana' has a double meaning, referring both to a woman from Colombia and a genus of orchids. The heroine, Cattleya, who had witnessed the murder of her family as a child, grows up to be an assassin who leaves her victims with a flower as a calling card. What is it about orchids that inspires the imagination in all these different ways?
