Orchids history

Note the similarity of their tubers with a mammalian testis. That similarity is what is referred to in the name orchid. The word derives from Greek orchis (testis), a word that is first found in the manuscripts of the Greek philosopher Theophrastus, dating from about the year 375 BC. That word refers to the shape of the tubers of the genus Orchis, which are terrestrial habit orchid tubers whose testicles seem double.

Orchids from time immemorial have attracted the most unimaginable passions in men. In ancient Greece, orchids were attributed curative and aphrodisiac properties. There are 1,500 year-old Chinese writings that make reference to the cultivation of orchids.

But the real discovery of their great value as an ornamental flower, and at the same time the beginning of their ordeal, happened in the early nineteenth century, when by chance the first plants of Cattleya labiata came to Europe. Cattleya labiata is a Brazilian species very similar to Venezuela’s national flower, the Cattleya mossiae.

For many years collectors, mostly professionals from France and England, mercilessly looted South American forests to satisfy the taste of the ladies and the greed of the collectors of that time for new and rare species. This was to the point that many species were already considered extinct in the wild.