Orchids: A Flower With Power
This story was written by CBSNews.com's Gina Pace
Thirty years ago, Nancy Meares received a orchid as a housewarming gift, and within a week, she had bought 25 more.
"The more orchids you buy — and you will, because it is obsessive-compulsive behavior — the more you learn," said Meares, who lives in the Washington, D.C. area. "I had to move out of the condo to buy a house to build a greenhouse, and then another greenhouse. It's the kind of behavior that lasts a lifetime."
Meares' obsession — she estimates she owns about 700 orchids — has turned into an expertise. She now travels the country judging orchid shows, critiquing plant's in categories such as form, color, and arrangement.
On Thursday, she judged the 26th Annual New York International Orchid Show, which runs through Sunday. The show features intricately designed displays set up on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. Between 50,000 and 70,000 plants from all over the world are on display or for sale, and last year it drew 200,000 visitors, making it the largest orchid show of its kind in the country.
"We're one of the premier shows in the world not just because of our size," said David Horak, chairman of the orchid show and president of the Greater New York Orchid Society. "People will see orchids here that they won't see at other shows in the country."
The stakes are high for those who are competing. Not only is there $15,000 in prize money, but the winners are recognized for years of work — most orchid plants need to grow for seven years before they even flower.
"It's like a beauty contest," said orchid expert and Manhattan Orchid Society member Patti Lee. "To win best orchid in show, that's tremendous. It's like dogs winning best in show at Westminster."
Lee, originally from Hawaii, hated orchids growing up because she had to help her mother fertilize and water the plants. But when she was 9 years old, she went with her mother to a nursery and saw a butterfly orchid.
"It freaked me out," said Lee, now 65. "It looked like a butterfly hovering over a plant."
Now, Lee has a couple hundred plants in her Manhattan apartment, but since she specializes in miniature orchids, "it's not like a jungle in my living room."
"It's fascinating. You get so addicted," she said. "People can spend a fortune on special lights, humidifiers and fans to have constant air movement. It all depends on your degree of obsession."
Orchid obsession gained national notoriety in Susan Orleans' bestseller "The Orchid Thief" and subsequently the movie "Adaptation," but fascination with the flowers is long-standing. In Victorian England, the wealthy would send orchid hunters to exotic jungles to bring back rare species, and those especially taken with the plants were said to have "orchidelirium."
The draw is clear. With as many as 30,000 natural species, the incredibly varied plants have varieties that Orleans describes as looking like "butterflies, bats, ladies handbags," or like an "ethereal and beautiful flying white frog."
The plant also holds a certain mystique that may stem as much from collectors like CIA spy James Angelton or the way some collectors devote themselves entirely to the hobby, like Charles Darrow, the inventor of the game Monopoly who, according to Orleans, retired at 46 to spend time collecting and tending to orchids.
Marc Hachadourian, the curator of glasshouse collections at the New York Botanical Garden which has an annual orchid show, said orchids never fail to attract attention, whether it be the bright color of the Vandas, which are also called Rainbow Orchids, or the unique, delicate shape of the slipper orchid.
"Orchids have a longstanding history of being surrounded with legend and lore, a reputation for being exotic and beautiful," he said.
Considered the most highly evolved flowering plants on earth, there are constantly new hybrids and mutations that create a new orchid to collect — and orchid lovers come to the show with lists of species they want to find in hand. Right now, "Harlequin" orchids with vivid blotches of color are must-haves, said Meares.
Emiel and his wife Eliane Verloove were among the first in line Thursday afternoon waiting for the doors to open to the show. Eliane said she bought her first orchid many years ago, a small plant growing on a piece of bark that bloomed and grew for years, until she tried to divide it to give to friends, which killed it.
"I've been trying ever since," she said. "But so far, I'm not so lucky."
They have visited the show for many years, but this time they were on a mission to find an orchid to replace one that had recently died.
"I think we take too much care of them," Elaine said, laughing.
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