Cattleya orchids

They're pleated and sometimes, uh, come out like an accordion-like structure.

They're a lot softer and a lot lusher as contrasted with leaves from, say, a Phalaenopsis or Vanda or even a Cattleya, which are a lot hardier feeling and succulent.

They're thin leaves.

These leaves are really designed to capture a lot of light very quickly and be able to make a lot of food in a short rainy season.

But these are thin and lush, so they don't have much protection on the leaves per se.

They don't have a thick, cutie, waxy cuticle.

Uh, so like a Cattleya, right? Cattleya leaves are almost like a leather jacket.

A catasetum is like a T-shirt.

Uh, what the paper did say, which I was floored by but does make sense, is that until right up to the 1980s, that the orchid genus Cattleya was actually more popular than Phalaenopsis.

Uh, they were known as the corsage flower and were very popular for that purpose, and it was only in the 1980s that the moth orchid came along and knocked Cattleyas off their perch.

I thought that was fascinating.

I'll link the paper in the show notes in case you want to have a look.

For my own part, the thought that the phantom was perhaps already under way made it impossible for me to get more than a glimpse of the town, hastily swallow a cup of the celebrated Caracas coffee, and take a return ticket for La Guera.

I would have willingly stayed to collect the lovely Cattleya mossiae, which is found in plenty growing on the branches of trees in nearly all the mountains around Caracas, and is now to be had with the greatest ease, for the Indians bring large quantities of plants into the city for sale at a very nominal price, instead of the poor plant collector having to brave all the dangers of the forest, as in other districts, only to obtain a few dozen plants.

One thing struck me as being more extraordinary than all the peculiarities of the people, country, or constitution.

That is, that on a railway where every mile presents a thousand dangers, no enterprising life-assurance company had so far speculated on human vitality as to issue assurance tickets.

As a political man he has lately become famous, having been for a short time governor of the state and then secretary for education.

He is at present in England, acting as consul for Colombia in the port of Southampton.

My journey was made in search of the fairy tribe of orchids, and as up to the present I had not even seen a single plant of value, I was delighted to learn that the early botanists had found the gorgeous Cattleya mendelii growing around here in profusion.

Now, however, through the immense exportation of these plants, not a single one is to be found within many days' journey from here on mules.

This is one of the most noteworthy events in the early history of orchid cultivation.

In eighteen eighteen Cattleya labiata appeared, and about the same time Cypripedium insigne, which has now two or three hundred varieties that enthusiasts consider sufficiently distinct to bear varietal names.

Disa grandiflora and Oncidium papilio appeared in eighteen twenty-five, when about one hundred and eighty species of tropical orchids were in cultivation in the Horticultural Society's gardens.

This Society gave a great impetus to orchid culture by sending out collectors into distant lands; and Dr. Lindley, whilst editor of the Gardener's Chronicle, played a no less important part in studying and recording the species as they were received in this country.

A remarkable feature was the beginning of that industry which has now attained such widespread popularity, namely the raising of hybrid orchids from seed.

The first hybrid orchid, Calanthe hybrid species dominie, obtained from a cross between C. forcata and C. masouka, flowered with Messrs James Veitch & Sons in October 1856.

The same firm subsequently produced many fine hybrid Calanthes, Phalaenopsis, Cattleyas, Lélias, and Léliocatleyas.

Many of these are now standard garden plants, whilst the work of hybridizing and raising hybrid orchids has become general.