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Orchid Trivia Phalaenopsis is the most popular type of orchid. More are produced and sold than any other type of orchid. They are long flowering and have a large assortment of colors and patterns. The smallest orchid, Platystele jungermannioides, is found in South America and has a flower only one half millimeter in diameter. Ecuador is home to more species of orchids than any other country in the world. At the peaks of the Andes in Ecuador, famed orchid explorer Lou Jost has found orchids that are encapsulated with ice each night and then thaw and thrive when warmed by the sun the next morning. There is no true black orchid, despite all the Hollywood titles, but orchids do come in every color of the rainbow. Vanilla seeds and their surrounding pulp within the seed pod of the Vanilla Orchid are used in the food industry as the extremely popular flavoring "vanilla extract". This is one of the very few nondecorative commercial uses for orchids. The Giant Orchid, Grammatophyllum speciosum, also called Tiger Orchid, Sugar Cane Orchid or Queen of the Orchids, is the world's largest orchid. A Giant Orchid weighing two tons was one of the highlights in the 1851 exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London. In 2003 visitors to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens were treated to the rare site of the first blooming Grammatophyllum speciosum in the United States. Its flower spike was eight feet long and filled with blooms. Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis smells like rotting meat. It attracts the particular type of fly it needs for pollination with this extremely foul odor. A six foot long specimen won the Best In Show at the Greater New York International Orchid Show in 2005. Nicknamed ‘Stinky’, it was hanging in an exhibit eight feet away from the orchids that exhibitors had entered into the ‘Best Fragrance’ competition. Fabreeze anyone? Angraecums and Brassavolas are two of the more common orchids that are fragrant at night. They are pollinated by moths, active at night, that are attracted by their fragrance. In 1862 Darwin predicted the existence of a moth with a ten inch proboscis (nose) based on his discovery of Angraecum sesquipedale , an orchid with an 11.5 inch nectary (spur); only the bottom 1.5 inches was filled with nectar. His peers laughed until the moth was discovered years later.
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