SYMHC Classics: Victorian Orchidelirium

Summary

Victorian Orchidelirium: Unveiling the Botanical Obsession of the Victorian Era

Introduction

In the "SYMHC Classics: Victorian Orchidelirium" episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class, hosts Holly Frey and Tracy V. Wilson, alongside Benedict Rozel, explore the captivating phenomenon known as orchidelirium that swept through Victorian England. Released on November 9, 2024, this episode delves into the historical, economic, and ecological dimensions of the Victorian orchid craze, highlighting key figures, such as Frederick Sander, and the profound impact this obsession had on both society and the natural world.

The Ancient and Diverse World of Orchids

The episode begins by tracing the deep historical roots of orchids. Holly Frey shares intriguing facts about their longevity and diversity:

Holly Frey [04:38]: "Orchids date back at least 20 million years... It's possible that orchids existed as far back as the Late Cretaceous period, around 80 million years ago."

Rozel elaborates on the adaptability and intricate relationships orchids have developed with their pollinators:

Benedict Rozel [04:17]: "Orchids grow all over the world. The only inhospitable areas are open water, true deserts, and glaciers."

With over 27,000 species, orchids represent the most diverse flower family, thriving in various environments and evolving complex mechanisms to attract specific pollinators. This diversity posed significant challenges for taxonomy and cultivation, setting the stage for the orchid fever that would later grip Victorian society.

Evolutionary Marvels and Darwin's Insights

The conversation shifts to the evolutionary strategies orchids employ to ensure their propagation. Tracy V. Wilson discusses how orchids have evolved to manipulate their pollinators:

Tracy V. Wilson [07:10]: "A single orchid plant can produce as many as 74 million seeds."

Holly Frey highlights Charles Darwin's pivotal work on orchids:

Holly Frey [08:15]: "While studying the angraecum sesquipedale, Charles Darwin concluded that this flower must have evolved alongside a moth species with a unique long proboscis."

Rozel narrates the fascinating story of Darwin’s hypothesis, which took over a century to be confirmed with the discovery of the moth Ex Morgani Predicta:

Benedict Rozel [09:48]: "Scientists were finally able to actually observe and capture footage of these large moths pollinating those orchids."

This co-evolutionary relationship underscored the complexity and beauty of orchids, fuelling their allure among Victorian enthusiasts.

The Rise of Orchidelirium in Victorian England

The episode delves into how orchids transcended botanical interest to become a symbol of status and wealth during the Victorian era. Holly Frey explains the inadvertent spark that ignited this obsession:

Holly Frey [10:07]: "Botanist William John Swainson is often credited with introducing orchids from Brazil to Great Britain and sparking the obsession with these flowers."

Rozel recounts the legendary story of how unbloomed orchids used as packing material bloomed unexpectedly during shipment, captivating the British elite and igniting orchidelirium:

Benedict Rozel [10:44]: "Swainson had picked up a number of other plant samples to ship back home to England in the 1810s, and he used unbloomed orchids... as packing material."

As Britain expanded its colonial reach, the exotic allure of orchids made them highly sought-after collectors' items, leading to intense competition and the emergence of a lucrative cottage industry centered around orchid cultivation and trading.

Frederick Sander: The Orchid King

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Frederick Sander, a pivotal figure in the orchid industry. Rozel introduces Sander’s journey:

Benedict Rozel [15:05]: "One of the most famous entrepreneurs to capitalize on orchids delirium was Frederick Sander."

Holly Frey details Sander’s partnership with Benedict Rozel and their establishment in St. Albans, which revolutionized orchid trading:

Holly Frey [16:42]: "The two of them set up shop in the St. Albans district north of London... They were quickly trading in orchids in volumes that were way beyond anything they had done before."

Sander's business acumen led to the expansion of his operations, including the construction of extensive greenhouses and the hiring of orchid hunters who traveled perilously to procure rare specimens. His authoritative reputation was further cemented when he became Queen Victoria's official royal orchid grower in 1886:

Benedict Rozel [17:53]: "In 1886, Sander became Queen Victoria's official royal orchid grower, a title that gave his business a significant boost."

Sander’s Legacy and the Perils of Orchid Hunting

The episode does not shy away from the darker side of orchidelirium. Rozel narrates the harrowing tales of orchid hunters who faced life-threatening dangers in their quests:

Benedict Rozel [20:04]: "Frederick Sander sent him back ... he ended up finding this orchid that was really prized, but it was growing on a dead body... he had to kind of steal himself just to collect this flower."

Holly Frey emphasizes the extreme measures and sacrifices made by these hunters, including instances of violence, disease, and even murder:

Holly Frey [20:59]: "Orchid hunters made their way around the globe, they really, really often met with bad ends... Some were murdered, some died after run-ins with wild animals."

These stories highlight the ruthless and often exploitative nature of the orchid trade during this period, where the pursuit of beauty and status led to significant human and ecological costs.

Ecological Impact and Decline of Orchidelirium

The rampant collection of orchids led to severe ecological consequences. The overharvesting of species like the Lady Slipper orchid resulted in extinction within Great Britain by 1917:

Holly Frey [30:50]: "The lady slipper has a little pouch that looks like the delicate toe of a slipper... orchid enthusiasts just could not help themselves when it came to cutting the flowers and digging them up, which often left them to die in the process."

Benedict Rozel discusses the emergence of conservation efforts in response to the ecological damage:

Benedict Rozel [31:59]: "A group called the Cypripedium Committee... kept the exact location of that lady slipper orchid a secret, and that orchid is still alive today."

Advancements in cultivation techniques in the 1920s, such as seed propagation and asexual reproduction through division, gradually reduced the dependence on wild-harvested specimens, leading to the decline of orchidelirium:

Holly Frey [30:46]: "By the 1920s though, advancements were being made both in cultivating orchids from seeds and by reproducing them through division."

Modern Implications and Continuing Challenges

The episode concludes by connecting the historical obsession with contemporary issues in the orchid industry, which is now valued at approximately $9 billion annually. Rozel highlights ongoing challenges, including smuggling and the delicate ecological balance required for orchid survival:

Benedict Rozel [33:19]: "Today's orchid industry is estimated to be a $9 billion business annually... most orchids evolved in ways that require, as we mentioned earlier, very specific pollinators."

Holly Frey underscores the importance of responsible cultivation and conservation to ensure the survival of these intricate plants:

Holly Frey [34:35]: "Things that threaten their pollinators threaten the plants, too. It's all tied together."

Notable Quotes

• Holly Frey [04:38]: "Orchids date back at least 20 million years... It's possible that orchids existed as far back as the Late Cretaceous period, around 80 million years ago."

• Benedict Rozel [10:44]: "Swainson had picked up a number of other plant samples to ship back home to England in the 1810s, and he used unbloomed orchids... as packing material."

• Benedict Rozel [20:04]: "Frederick Sander sent him back ... he ended up finding this orchid that was really prized, but it was growing on a dead body... he had to kind of steal himself just to collect this flower."

• Holly Frey [30:50]: "The lady slipper has a little pouch that looks like the delicate toe of a slipper... orchid enthusiasts just could not help themselves when it came to cutting the flowers and digging them up, which often left them to die in the process."

• Benedict Rozel [33:19]: "Today's orchid industry is estimated to be a $9 billion business annually... most orchids evolved in ways that require, as we mentioned earlier, very specific pollinators."

Conclusion

The "Victorian Orchidelirium" episode offers a comprehensive exploration of a unique historical phenomenon, intertwining botany, economics, and human ambition. Through engaging storytelling and meticulous research, Holly Frey, Tracy V. Wilson, and Benedict Rozel illuminate how the Victorian obsession with orchids not only shaped a lucrative industry but also left lasting ecological imprints. The episode serves as a poignant reminder of the delicate balance between human fascination and environmental stewardship.

Transcript

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[Benedict Rozel]

Happy Saturday. Today we are returning to an episode.

[Frederick Sander]

On flowers, specifically orchids, and the tremendous enthusiasm for them during the Victorian era.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This originally came out on July 2, 2018. Enjoy.

[Frederick Sander]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History.

[Benedict Rozel]

Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey.

[Holly Frey]

And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Benedict Rozel]

And if you listen to the 2011 Tulip Mania episode that Sarah and De Blina did, you know already that sometimes people go a little mad in their obsessions when it comes to plants. And today we're gonna talk about another episode in history in which plants became a status symbol and the cornerstone of a high dollar industry. And while we're not really gonna talk about him later on in this episode, I did wanna mention that this one also brushes up against our episode on Joseph Paxton and the Crystal palace, because Paxton also cultivated gardens and built a conservatory for William Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, also known as the Bachelor Duke, and in that job gathered the largest collection in England for his royal employer. The Bachelor Duke had also fallen victim to orchid delirium, which was an intense obsession with the plants that was sweeping through Victorian England at the time. And that is what we are talking about today.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So orchids date back at least 20 million years.

[Holly Frey]

In 2007, a bee was discovered. It was preserved in amber and it dated back that far and also still had orchid pollen stuck to its wings. A fossilized orchid from New Zealand is dated back 21 million years. It's possible that orchids existed as far back as the Late Cretaceous period, around 80 million years ago.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Or maybe even longer.

[Benedict Rozel]

Yes. So they survived when the dinosaurs did not. Orchids grow all over the world. The only inhospitable areas are open water, true deserts and glaciers. And there are species of orchid that grow from the ground, but a lot of varieties are epiphytes, meaning that they grow on other plants or rocks. Some even grow on fungus. They are sometimes mentioned as being parasitic. That's not actually the case. They're getting their nutrients from the air around them. They just kind of need a place to perch. And unsurprisingly, for a plant family that can thrive in so many different places, there is a vast range of species of orchid. There are more than 27,000 species of orchid. Some sources will list that number is even higher. More are being discovered all the time. This incredible range makes the taxonomy of the Orchidaceae challenging. The flowers of orchids can range from single flowering plants to multiple blooms on a stalk. And this is the most diverse flower family.

[Holly Frey]

Orchids are usually pollinated by insects or birds. And the plants have evolved to make themselves as appealing as possible to their pollinators. A lot of times the plants have a petal or leaf shapes that enable pollinators to rest on the plant while they're making a visit. An estimated one third of orchid species have figured out some kind of trickery to ensure their propagation. So there are varieties that look and smell like female bees so that solitary males will come and spread their pollen around. The Dracula orchid attracts insects that usually eat dung by emitting a lot of different horrifying smells that reproduce the sense of not just animal excrement, but also urine and decaying meat.

[Benedict Rozel]

Yeah, that's one of those plants where I will admit, just because I like gothic y things, by virtue of it being called the Dracula orchid, I'm like, yes. And then knowing what it smells like. Hard pass. The slipper orchid has a really unique structure that first offers an inviting drink from its pouch like structure. That's like the pebble on the bottom is kind of shaped like a little pouch. And then that will trap insects attracted to it in the pouch with only one way out. And that path involves the insect passing through usually a tight opening that ensures that its body is covered with pollen grains, pollinia. And then once free, when that insect is drawn to the next bloom, those pollen grains are deposited and new ones are picked up and so on.

[Holly Frey]

A single orchid plant can produce as many as 74 million seeds. And in the wild, they require exposure to a symbiotic fungus to germinate in controlled conditions like nurseries and home germination, A special growing medium is used instead. Orchids can also propagate asexually through division. When a single plant splits into two actively growing pieces.

[Benedict Rozel]

Yeah, that division approach was used a lot by some of the people that we will be talking about later. The other thing that I think we should mention is that a lot of these orchids are so specific in the way they have evolved to attract one specific pollinator. And it becomes a really unique relationship. Orchids have, of course, been revered by humans throughout recorded history. They were thought to have aphrodisiac qualities in ancient Greece. They were used to flavor food by the Aztecs. And they have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries to treat everything from lung and kidney disease to tonsillitis and even cancer.

[Holly Frey]

While studying the angricum sesquipedale Charles Darwin came to the conclusion that this flower, which has a really deep bloom and then a nectary, which is the glandular organ that secretes nectar, sometimes as deep as 30 centimeters, which is a little over 11 inches, he concluded that it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Must have evolved alongside a moth species.

[Holly Frey]

That had a unique trait to allow it to be pollinated. So to explain how this flower, with this very deep well, could be pollinated, he theorized that a moth must have a proboscis that could extend up to almost the length of the entire flower's depth.

[Benedict Rozel]

And this particular bit of orchid study has become really famous because co evolution at this point was a very new idea and because Darwin did not have a moth specimen to back up this theory. Charles Darwin died in 1882 without ever having his hypothesis confirmed. In 1907, though, a subspecies of the giant Congo moth, which came from Madagascar just as Darwin's orchid samples had, was discovered. This moth subspecies, named Ex Morgani Predicta, was approximately 16 cm from wingtip to wingtip, and it had a proboscis which sat coiled on its head and then could extend 20cm or more. It seemed to fit the bill. But it wasn't until 1992, more than a century after Darwin's death, that scientists were finally able to actually observe and capture footage of these large moths pollinating those orchids.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It looks really cool.

[Benedict Rozel]

It does. It's really neat.

[Holly Frey]

But what's important for today's show, in terms of the work that Darwin was doing with orchids, is that it all happened in the second half of the 19th century. And at the same time, particularly in Victorian England, orchid delirium was becoming a significant phenomenon.

[Benedict Rozel]

Botanist William John Swainson is often credited with introducing orchids from Brazil to Great Britain and sparking the obsession with these flowers. But that happened actually by accident, at least according to legend. So the story goes that Swainson had picked up a number of other plant samples to ship back home to England in the 18 teens, and he used unbloomed orchids, which he believed at the time to be weeds, as packing material. And the orchids bloomed either en route to their destination or just after the parcels were unpacked, depending on your source, and immediately captured the attention of everyone who saw them.

[Holly Frey]

As Great Britain continued to expand its power through colonization, exoticism flourished. People of means became collectors of rare and exciting things from all around the world, and orchids became an obsession for some of them. Naturally, a cottage industry grew to fill this expanding demand for these blooms. And the second half of the 19th century saw the business of orchid collecting growing and selling reaching cutthroat levels of competition.

[Benedict Rozel]

And coming up, we are going to talk about a man who came to be known as the Orchid King. But first we're going to pause for a word from one of our sponsors.

[Narrator]

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[Frederick Sander]

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[Benedict Rozel]

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[Frederick Sander]

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[Benedict Rozel]

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[Frederick Sander]

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[Benedict Rozel]

One of the most famous entrepreneurs to capitalize on orca dealers delirium was Frederick Sander. Sander was born in Germany in 1847, and at the age of 20 he had moved to London and started working for a seed company. But he didn't stay there for long because while he was working there, he met a Czechoslovakian botanist named Benedict Rosel. And before long, the two men decided to go into business together.

[Holly Frey]

Rozel was more than 20 years older than Sander. He'd been working with plants since he was 12, first as an apprentice gardener and then tending the gardens of European aristocracy. In the 1850s, he had moved to Mexico and set up a hemp nursery. But he had an accident. There was a machine that he invented to clean hemp fiber and it severed one of his hands. He went back to Europe before switching careers to become a plant hunter. And he replaced that lost hand with a hook. And according to legend, that gave him some added cachet on his adventures.

[Benedict Rozel]

Yeah, he apparently was a very tall, striking man to begin with. And then when he had this hook hand, it kind of fulfills every like Victorian romantic novel fantasy of like a rough and rugged person. And he has kind of talked about that way even today when you read about him in books about orchids. And when Rozel met Sander, he had been Collecting plants abroad for some time, but he had never had a partner who could receive them and then sell the inventory back home. Which meant that he would have to travel back and forth with the plants. And it cut down on his time to collect. And because he had been a one man operation, his success was modest. But once Rosal teamed up with Sander, that changed rapidly.

[Holly Frey]

The two of them set up shop in the St. Albans district north of London. Sander had a great head for business, and Rosal, just no longer encumbered by having to worry about the fate of his shipments once they reached England, could just keep on collecting without any kind of constraint. They were quickly trading in orchids in volumes that were way beyond anything they had done before. They had a warehouse adjacent to their shop that was literally packed to the rafters with stock. Rozel worked for decades with Sander, making trips all over the world to collect orchids before he retired. A very wealthy man with dozens of plants named after him and having discovered more than 800 different species.

[Benedict Rozel]

In 1873, Frederick Sander built his first greenhouse so that he could cultivate his own seedlings as well as importing stock. But within a few years, it became obvious that he was really quickly going to deplete that space. So in 1881, he left the seed shop and he expanded significantly to a four acre parcel of land where he built five dozen greenhouses. He also contracted additional orchid hunters, eventually employing 23 men to travel the globe and find him new plants.

[Holly Frey]

He also wrote a four volume compendium of orchids titled Reichenbachia Orchids Illustrated and Described. It had illustrations by Henry George Moon, which are beautiful. It described almost 200 species of orchid and was published over the course of several years in the late 1880s.

[Benedict Rozel]

In 1886, Sander became queen Victoria's official royal orchid grower, A title which also gave his business a boost. He had also incidentally dedicated one of the volumes of Reichenbachia to her. And Sander used his high volume of acquisition and production to expand his customer base. Eventually, even middle income plant enthusiasts could afford to possess an orchid. Because of his work, Sander opened a nursery across the Atlantic in New Jersey to fill demand. But he found running at long distance to just be too difficult. And he sold that business in 1896, two years before he got rid of that North American nursery, he had opened another nursery outside of Bruges, Belgium. And the Belgium enterprise, being much closer to London, was more easily manageable for Sander. He could go over there and stay for a while. And handle things, but also quickly travel back home to oversee things in the London office. And that Belgium office quickly expanded, just as his English compound had. I think it, too, ended up with about five dozen greenhouses, and that one also diversified a lot and carried a really wide variety of plants, including azaleas, lilies, and palms.

[Holly Frey]

Sander was well respected. He had a reputation as an honest, direct, and energetic businessman. His love of orchids seemed to have been really genuine. And he won a lot of awards at international exhibitions for both new species that he introduced and for hybrids that were developed in his nurseries.

[Benedict Rozel]

Dealing in orchids was, in some ways, kind of like trading stocks today, where the values of plants could fluctuate wildly over short periods of time. At one point, according to an account by Sander, he sold an orchid to a lawyer from Liverpool for $12, which already was probably not the tiniest amount you could imagine paying for a flower. But then five years later, that attorney sold it back to him for a thousand.

[Holly Frey]

And while Sander enjoyed the wheeling and vealing, receiving shipments and tending the nurseries, the men that he was sending out into the world to find new orchids were literally risking their lives to give.

[Benedict Rozel]

A sense of just how perilous this work was. According to the book the Woodlands Orchids, written by Frederick Boyle and published in 1901, French orchid hunter Leon Humboldt had relayed to the author that while he was collecting orchids in Madagascar, he and his brother had hosted a dinner in Tomataway, which is now known more commonly, I believe, as Thomasina. And 12 months after that dinner, Leon Humboldt was the only man from that table left alive.

[Holly Frey]

As orchid hunters made their way around the globe, they really, really often met with bad ends. Some of them were murdered, Some of them died after run ins with wild animals. A lot of them died of tropical diseases, and some of them just vanished.

[Benedict Rozel]

Yeah, and there were instances where they were murdered, sometimes by other plant hunters. This was really a very cutthroat business. Hunter William Arnold drowned in the Orinoco river in Venezuela while he was hunting for specimens. And that was after he had barely avoided a high probability of death in a duel with another orchid hunter over a disagreement. The duel never actually quite happened, but they were right up to it.

[Holly Frey]

Even Benedict Rozel, who was very successful at all of this, met with grave misfortune in his travels. He was robbed at gun or knife point, or sometimes both, 17 times over his career. His nephew, Francesette Claboch, died of yellow fever after the two of them went on an expedition together.

[Benedict Rozel]

William Michalitz was one of Sander's best agents, and Sander was relentless in pushing him. There were numerous occasions where the man met with ill fortune, and he would cable back to Sander that the trip had gone really awry and he wanted to return to England to regroup. And Sander always told him, no, no, stay there, go back, collect more samples. And at one point, he even sent him to Colombia when the country was very dangerous to travel in due to violent internal conflict. That conflict had been going on for a long, long time, but there were times when it escalated and Sander did not care. He just sent him in to get more flowers.

[Holly Frey]

There was a particularly violent experience in Papua New guinea in which Mikolitz witnessed several beheadings and dismemberments, and that left him really shaken and desperate to go back home. But on orders, he stayed there and found more orchids. He survived his career as an orchid hunter, but he didn't wind up retiring in style. He was almost destitute when he died back home in Germany.

[Benedict Rozel]

Yeah, there's one story, and I feel like we should mention in all of these stories, that the people that were telling them were the men who survived. So there is also the probability that some embellishment may have happened in this case. Michalitz did survive. But there is a story that at one point, he had been in the midst of an area that had had a lot of violence for a long time due to various internal conflicts. He had wanted to leave. Sanders sent him back, and he ended up finding this orchid that was really prized, but it was growing on a dead body, so he had to kind of steal himself just to collect this flower. That poor man, to me, just seems like so abused in that relationship. But another orchid hunter, Albert Milliken, had several successful expeditions, and he actually penned a very popular book about his job titled Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter. But unfortunately, he took one too many trips. He was stabbed to death on his.

[Frederick Sander]

Last mission in the Andes.

[Holly Frey]

In contrast, there was a pair of brothers, William and Thomas Lobb, who worked as plant hunters for Veitch Nurseries. They both managed to retire from plant hunting rather than dying on the job. While there were definitely a number of business dramas in their lives, and there was a great deal of adventure, the two of them managed, traveling separately to collect a wide variety of plant species. A lot of them are still common in gardens today, and they died after settling down after their wilder exploits.

[Benedict Rozel]

Yeah, I actually have some plans to do an episode just on the two of them in the not so Distant future. And next up, we're gonna delve into just how very tricky it was for orchid hunters to get their found prizes back to Europe, provided that they collected them and did not die along the way. But first, we're gonna take a little sponsor break.

[Narrator]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Benedict Rozel]

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[Frederick Sander]

Choose paper you're a papertarian someone who.

[Benedict Rozel]

Lives a paper based lifestyle because it has a positive impact on the planet.

[Frederick Sander]

And also because it's the easiest choice.

[Benedict Rozel]

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[Frederick Sander]

Seriously, it's as easy as reaching for boxed instead of bottled water. It's as easy as opting for beauty products that come in paper packaging. It's as easy as grabbing eggs in a cardboard container. And that's all in one trip to the grocery store. Which, if everyone's being honest, you were planning to go to anyway. But paper isn't just an easy choice. Papertarians know that.

[Benedict Rozel]

It's the smart choice too, because paper.

[Frederick Sander]

Comes from trees, a renewable and sustainably managed resource, and paper products are designed to be recycled. In fact, when you choose products that come in paper based pack, those fibers can go on to be recycled up to seven times. So why wouldn't you go papertarian? Learn more at howlifeunfolds.com Papertarian.

[Narrator]

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[Benedict Rozel]

So in this next section there is a piece from an article that I'm going to read which was written in 1906. It includes some language that is outdated and racist at this point, but I wanted to include it so you have a sense of how this whole thing was sort of romanticized and seen. And even while acknowledging that it was difficult, it kind of is written in this way that suggests like dashing adventure. Because even if a hunter did manage to find orchids and survive, collecting them and then getting to the next step was also really, really hard work. This is from a 1906 article which ran in the Washington D.C. evening Star and was written by William George Fitzgerald, who wrote, quote, for difficult as it is to find rare orchids at all, the trouble only begins when the hunter discovers them. He must pack and prepare them for transportation by coulee and Assam, by long necked llama in the Andes by raft or elephant, and contrive to get them thousands of miles across the ocean in such a condition that at least 20% of them will arrive with some vitality in them. And yet 10,000 plants may be collected on some remote Andean peak or Papuan jungle with infinite care and consigned to Europe, the freight alone accounting for thousands of dollars. Yet on arrival there may not be a single orchid left alive.

[Holly Frey]

The Plants themselves were also endangered by all the very mania that was driving all this orchid hunting for one. When an orchid hunter found a new species, it was pretty standard practice to just dig up every single one to keep the find to themselves. On occasions, the hunters would also sabotage one another. Sander advised his men to urinate on other hunters halls if the opportunity arose to try to destroy their work. And needless to say, conservation of the ecological systems where they were hunting these orchids was not a priority at all.

[Benedict Rozel]

No, Rozel in particular had kind of a reputation for being kind of sloppy and a little bit boorish and destructive in his collecting methods. By the 1920s though, advancements were being made both in cultivating orchids from seeds and by reproducing them through division. And that slowly drove down the delirium that had propelled all of those dangerous expeditions. Additionally, a lot of the men who had been drawn to the adventure of orchid hunting were dead, and the few who had survived were retired.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1917, the Lady Slipper orchid was.

[Holly Frey]

Declared extinct in Great Britain. The lady slipper, as its name suggests, has a little pouch that looks like the delicate toe of a slipper. And then above that pouch are normally three petals with the topmost petal usually larger than the two that fall to the side. Often there's a little twist. This flower is gold and burgundy. And orchid enthusiasts just could not help themselves when it came to cutting the flowers and digging them up, which often left them to die in the process.

[Benedict Rozel]

In the 1930s, a single remaining lady's slipper orchid was found growing wild in Great Britain in Yorkshire Dales. That was the last known wild orchid there, not the last known wild one on earth. Just for clarity, and even though Orchid delirium had calmed down to the point of non existence by the time of this discovery, that single plant kicked off a refreshed obsession. In part just because of the financial value of the plant. This was so intense that the plant had to be guarded by police and conservation minded volunteers from plant hunters who might try to find it once its existence became public knowledge.

[Holly Frey]

A group called the Cypripedium Committee, which was named after the plant's Latin name, formed to protect the plant in the immediate sense, and then also to set out a long term plan for its well being. They kept the exact location of that lady slipper orchid a secret, and that orchid is still alive today. In the late 1980s, scientists finally managed to propagate the plant and raise seedlings.

[Benedict Rozel]

Those seedlings, once they reached a certain level of growth, were then planted at various other secret sites in northern England. Although a lot of them did not live to maturation, the few that did survive had to be protected during the flowering season, just as that parent plant had. Eventually, a nature reserve in Lancashire was able to foster a lady slipper orchid population that was hardy enough that it is now open to visitors. So that location of the first one is still secret to most people.

[Holly Frey]

So there's a real problem in the ongoing obsession with orchids, apart from all the problems that we've already been talking about, you know.

[Benedict Rozel]

Yeah. In the modern era, there are still people that hunt for orchids. If you saw the movie adaptation or read the book it was adapted from, the Orchid Thief, there are still people that trade in this, Although adaptation, I should say, is a very, very loose adaptation of that book.

[Holly Frey]

Yeah. So apart from all the many problems we've already talked about, the problem that's keeping botanists from having the fullest range of information about orchids today is secrecy. When plants are discovered that are believed to be valuable, often they're kept totally secret in the interest of profit over science.

[Benedict Rozel]

Today's orchid industry is estimated to be a $9 billion business annually, and there are, as I said, still people who smuggle orchids. But that, too, is problematic outside of any issues of morality or financial ethics. And that's because most orchids evolved in ways that require, as we mentioned earlier, very specific pollinators. It's not like you could take any given orchid and just kind of put it in with bees and let nature work it out. Not all orchids would work that way. So it's often difficult, even for botanists to properly replicate the needs of these plants. So collectors who are still willing to pay top dollar for one that is collected from the wild, that is maybe rare and exotic, may, in fact doom those very plants that they value so highly. Because care is so difficult that not everybody can manage it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Frey]

And it also means that things that threaten their pollinators threaten the plants, too. It's all tied together.

[Frederick Sander]

Yes.

[Benedict Rozel]

There are a lot of stories if you start digging about, like, ecological whoopsie daisies that happen when people are trying to collect an orchid, or there's an orchid that, like, comes and goes. I read one story and I. I did not write it down, so I don't have the details of its location exactly correct, But a botanist had seen this orchid and then had gone back to the place that it was some years later to study it some more, and it wasn't there anymore. And they had found out from a local that there was a fire and that there were frequent fires because of some industrialization in this swamp land. And so they got all kinds of activism going and sort of like stopped the industrial stuff that was causing those fires. And then it turned out that that particular orchid had evolved in a way that it needed a fire in its cycle every certain number of years. So even when we try to intercede in an ecologically sound way, sometimes it does not work with whatever orchid is being examined or desired.

[Holly Frey]

Well, and of course, today you do not need to travel all over the world to get an orchid. You can buy them at the store, you can order all kinds of them online at a wide variety of price points. Some of them are still going to cost you several thousand dollars, though.

[Benedict Rozel]

Yeah, I mean, it's again, fascinating to me the range that you can get in orchid for 15 bucks if you're very low end, all the way up to, you know, many thousands of dollars. Also, I just, as a coda, wanted to mention that just in case you think you are not an orchid fan or you're not into them or you don't cross paths with them, next time you bite into a delicious slice of cake or a cookie, you might want to think of orchids because that's where vanilla comes from.

[Holly Frey]

And vanilla is delicious and amazing.

[Benedict Rozel]

It is. Those brown flecks you see in French, usually not French vanilla because that's refined in a way that you don't see the brown flecks, but in natural vanilla things, those little brown flecks, those are orchid seeds and they're delicious.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is history podcastheartradio.com.

[Benedict Rozel]

And you can subscribe to the show.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or.

[Holly Frey]

Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Here's to Turkey Day, the favorite day of the year for many. From cozying up by the fire to watch the parade, to gathering in the kitchen to whip up casseroles.

[Holly Frey]

It's a time of joy and togetherness.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And here's to the Chinette brand for.

[Holly Frey]

Making it all a little easier with.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Chinette Classic collection. No need to worry about cleanup. Plus, Chinette Classic plates and bowls are compostable, helping not just to keep the sink clean, but also leaving less of.

[Holly Frey]

A mess for future generations.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So here's to being together. Here's to us, all of us. Find a local [e-mail] See Gladiator 2.

[Narrator]

Only in theaters November 22nd. This film delivers action, an emotional and compelling story, and performances in spectacle on a scale unlike anything else. Gladiator 2 stands out with its immersive visuals and a gripping, character driven narrative. The film stars an extraordinary cast including Paul Mezcal, Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington and Connie Nielsen. Reprising her role as Lucilla. Get ready for an epic experience made for the big screen. Gladiator 2 only in theaters on November.

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Got a thing, an obsession. For some of us, it's vintage fashion, our cars, anything we can collect. They all live under one roof. Ebay it's where closets get filled with statement pieces and vintage finds, where must have sneakers wait for you. And designer handbags are the real deal on ebay. Doors open to stacks of the rarest trading cards and a garage stocked with all the car parts you need for any DIY job. EBay's home to whatever thing you're into that keeps you up at night. EBay things people love. Your teen requested a ride, but this time not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. You drive your teenager around a lot to their friend Jacob's house, their other friend Jake's house. To James'to, Jaden's, to Jalen's too.

[Benedict Rozel]

Um, mom, this is Jake's house, not Jacob's.

[Narrator]

Now with an Uber Teen account, your teen can request a ride under your supervision. They'll ride with a highly rated driver and with live trip tracking, you'll follow along the whole ride to their friends houses that all sound the same. Add your teen to your Uber account today. See app for details.

[Benedict Rozel]

Bye Mom.