The Wild Orchid Mystery

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

Sidedoor, National Zoo, Exhibits, National Museum, Zoo, Washington, African American History And Culture, Postal Museum, Exhibit, Society & Culture, American History, Pop Culture, History, Art19, Air And Space, Science, The Smithsonian, Tony Cohn, Museum, Smithsonian, History Of The World, Natural History, Dc

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2019

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You probably know orchids as the big, colorful flowers found in grocery stores and given as housewarming gifts. But those tropical beauties represent only a fraction of the estimated 25,000 orchid species worldwide. While their showy relatives fly off the shelves, North America’s more understated native orchids are disappearing in the wild. Scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center are working to protect these orchids and their habitats, but first they need to solve a surprisingly difficult problem: how to grow one.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX. I'm Lizzy Peabody.
0:17.0	Okay. Okay, we need some discussion. The spread is 77 to 86. Gordon, are you in or out?
0:32.1	I was on the low end, although I was not the lowest score.
0:35.0	It is a smaller flower.
0:39.0	This is the sound of a flower beauty contest.
0:44.0	It does have good color, but it is not as dark.
0:47.0	I'm eavesdropping on an event that happens every month.
0:51.0	The National Orchid Society's D.C. area orchid judging.
0:55.0	People drive or ship their orchid plants from as far away as Florida to have them evaluated by the 12 or so judges in this room.
1:03.0	So what kind of orchid is this?
1:05.0	This is a phalanopsis.
1:07.0	This is a species that's related to the ones
1:09.0	that you buy in the grocery store.
1:11.0	Rob Griesbach gave me a hushed play-by-play at the back of the room. store.
1:27.0	They have long, thin stems, usually attached to a wooden stick with what looks like a tiny hair clip
1:32.6	and delicate alien looking flowers.
1:35.5	These flowers are one of the things
1:37.0	that judges are looking at as they pass each orchid around the table.
1:41.2	One plant coming up. Very nice. They consider color, size, texture, form.
1:49.0	Those feathers are not flat are at least symmetrical.
1:53.0	Symmetrically wavy.
1:56.0	Aesymmetry is a killer in flowers.
	...

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