Kauai Orchids - (phalaenopsis orchid care) Dendrobium Orchids

by Admin on December 29th, 2006

Kauai Orchids - Dendrobium Orchids
DENDROBIUM (den-DRO-bee-um) Dendrobiums are among the most commonly encountered orchids in the retail trade today. This is a large genus of over 1,000 species, ranging from India and Sri Lanka …

Orchid Delivery UK Send Orchids Buy Orchid Plant Online
Send Orchids for delivery in the UK. Buy orchids online. Select from many varieties including … Not 100% happy with your Serenata experience? We offer a no-quibble replacement or …

Wild Orchids

Beautiful Orchids Home Page
The red orange and sepal of this orchid clearly define it as one of the most gorgeous hybrids in the Phalaenopsis family. Roses may be impressive, but very few flowers can match the beauty and …

Beautiful Orchids Cut Orchids
Contemporary interior design features simple lines, clean palatte with bold, brilliant accents! Beautiful Orchids offers this sumptuous arrangement in a clear handsome, French glass vase in cool …

Orchids Galore & More - Orchids in Houston, TX
Home. Contact Us. Pictures. More Pictures. Orchid Care. Welcome to Orchids Galore. We offer a beautiful selection of orchids such as Cattleyas, Phalaenopsis, Dendrobiums, Oncidiums, Encyclias …

Orchid Garden: Dining, Relations, and Collections

The beauty of flowers rich in color and form, like orchids, is a pleasure to view. Today, many restaurants and dining places are set against some scenic orchid garden to augment the savor of food. An instance in view is Vanilla Pod Restaurant & Bar whose name symbolizes the connection between vanilla flavor of many desserts and palatable items and its source viz. the orchid Vanilla Planifolia. The beauty of orchid garden view is matched by fresh orchid as ingredient in the restaurants food.

Display Orchid Gardens

Orchids form the largest family of flowering plants. With their variegated charm to eyes, orchids are ideal flowers for growing in a display garden. Orchids are one of the most highly specialized plants in terms of habitat. Many of these live as epiphytes in tropical woodlands. Some of them flourish in moist climates and still others in drier places.

Their wide distribution makes them easy to grown and display in your orchid garden. And if that is not enough, orchids have been hybridized into a wide variety of colors and textures, to improve their look and adaptability. An estimated around 100,000 horticultural varieties have been produced and hundreds of new orchids are bred every year. This makes them one of the best aesthetic sources for placing in a display orchid garden.

Flower in the Orchid Garden and the Wild

When it was suggested that the beautiful orchid flowers so coddled in an orchid garden are genetically related to inhabitants of wild like the asparagus, the relation sounded weird. Later, Ken Cameron of New Yorks Botanical Garden studied the DNA of orchids and other flowering plants.

His findings confirmed the surprising revelations about orchids kin. The latter include onions, irises, amaryllis, daffodils, and even the vegetable asparagus. Studies further bring to light the fact that orchids are by no means as new as previously thought. They are older than palms and hence predate 100 million years or so.

Orchid Collections

Given the great species diversity it is no wonder for flower collectors and gardening amateurs to select orchid flowers for their botanical gardens in greater proportion. This seems to be the trend as we take a look at Brooklyn Botanic Garden where the collection of orchids now reaches 2200 plants with 240 genera and about 980 species from all parts of the world. Cattleya, Lycaste,Dendrobium,Oncidium, Encyclia are some of the most welcome varities of orchids that beautify the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

ARISTOCRATIC ORCHIDS
Photographs of orchids and information about cultivating them.

Fairy with orchids (care flower orchid) 2

by Admin on December 29th, 2006

Fairy with orchids 2

lunamaris1969 posted a photo:

Wild Orchids

What is an Orchid Family?

Orchidaceae, or the Orchid Family, is the largest family among angiosperms (flowering plants) with about 800 genera and as much as 3500 species. This makes at least 10 % of all the known angiosperm species. Orchids are highly specialized plants that have adapted to a wide range of geographical habitats, showing some unique features that help their survival and successful procreation.

For example, bee orchids (of the genus Ophrys) bear flowers that look like female insects, thus attracting male insects and resulting in pollination. Orchid plants produce the smallest seeds, usually in millions, among all angiosperms. Since orchids have not been recorded as fossils, their evolutionary history is hard to work out. Still, it can be asserted that orchid were among the first flowering plants that evolved on the land at around 120 million years ago.

Habitat and Mode of Living

Orchids inhabit a wide range of habitats throughout the tropics, spreading over temperate zones in both hemispheres of the globe, and making their way into the peripheries of the Arctic. Antarctica seems to be the only place where possibility of finding an orchid plant is ruled out.

Most familiar varieties of orchids come from the tropics with large and beautiful flowers that suit the decorative taste of admirers and also of florists who use them in bouquets and corsages. Most orchid species grow from horizontal stems, called rhizomes whose thick bases-the pseudobulbs- store water. Pseudobulbs are the sites from where flowers arise. Orchids bearing pseudobulbs belong to the sympodial group (known for the famous Cattleya, Laelia, and Coelogyne).

In contrast stands the monopodial group (Vanda and Aerides) in which the plant grows continuously from a central crown. Majority of the orchid species grow as epiphytes on the top of other trees, plants, and even rocks. Saprophytic orchid species grow over organic debris. Some orchids live in symbiotic association with fungi that provide nutrients to the orchid, in return securing a stable environment for growth.

Hybrid Orchid

Orchids tend to retain the purity of their breed i.e. species from different genera do not easily interbreed to produce hybrid plants. Man-designed hybridization has, however, produced many hybrid varieties of beautiful orchid flowers, some of which are of high commercial value like the Brassolaelio-cattleya, a cross between Laelia and Cattleya. Furthering certain qualities of purebred orchids is another aim for which hybridization has been initiated. An example of such is the yellow color in orchids.

Yellow is not an exoteric color among orchid flowers and is mainly found in Cattleya Dowiana. Hybridization allows the specific color to grow and perpetuate. The physicality of certain purebred orchids is also enhanced by hybridization process. Thus Brassocattleyas narrow sepals and petals and poor texture have been improved by crossing it with Laelia to produce a variety of firm size and texture.