The Orchid Exhibit

by Mary Jasch

Take the steps up to the glorious Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at The New York Botanical Garden, where its distinctive glass structure stands regal against blue sky. One becomes humbled as before any great work of art. Follow the path around to the other side and enter a galaxy-under-glass of New World palms and plants, all decorated by 8,000 orchids.

Just inside, two bold Royal Palm boles rise to the 90-foot-high dome. Behind them, a circular pool reflects lavender, white, and purple-yellow Phaleanopsis on the water's surface. More flamboyant palms - Traveler's Tree with red swirling bark, coconut, grigri and macaw, chamaedorea, licuri and cherry - fill the glass Palms of the Americas Gallery. Peachy clay pots of purple Phalaenopsis with tiny pink polka dot plant and maidenhair fern accent the palms. Other orchids dangle from frond axils of scrub palmetto.

This is the Orchid Show: An Exhibition and Sale of Fine Orchids, a curated, museum-like public presentation of rare, unusual, and just plain gorgeous flowers. The show runs through April 2.

“We inform our visitors about what we do here in science, education, horticulture, genetic research, and conservation of orchids," says Marc Hachadourian, the Garden's curator of glasshouse collections. "We're able to tell more about the plant material. It's much more than just planting flowers in a display. We have a full range of information that we present. The Orchid Show is our big launch into spring. It's that bit of green therapy during these grey days that gets people interested in growing plants after winter."

At the show's start, over 30% of the orchids on display were brought in, then as the show progresses, some plants are changed out depending on the species and variety. Some with short-lived flowers are changed twice during the five-week exhibition. So what to do with all these beauties? “The exhibit allows us to expand our collection," says Margaret Falk, director of plant records information. Others are composted.

The Conservatory was renovated in 1999 and its landscape redesigned to show how plants would have been displayed in 1902, when it was built. It now has major themed exhibitions, including the 4th annual Orchid Show, among Conservatory plants chosen to look as close to naturally occuring wild species.

Succumb to orchid fever in the Lowland Tropical Rain Forest Gallery of Central and South America, where vanilla orchid climbs and multi-colored Dendrobium and 'Dancing Ladies' Oncidium spray from tropical tree trunks. Past the plant hunter's research hut, the path leads up a stairway high to a Balsa wood tree top with a great botanical name, Ochroma lagopus.

Then on to the Aquatic Garden with a long central pool with an antique fountain and tubs of floating orchids and mini water lilies. Arbors of vines arch across the room - Mysore Clockvine with dangling clusters of red and yellow, and Jade Vine with clusters of pointed blossoms of plasticy-aqua. In one corner, planters of soft papyrus and cyperus stand.

Enter the Upland Tropical Rain Forest where the environment is shadier and drier with a taller canopy. A window case displays miniature orchids, mostly from NYBG's collection, with ornate leaves and unusual forms like a grassy-looking clump with perfect white jewel blossoms. Masdevallia 'Dawn Glow' blossoms sit cross-legged, suspended in air, and salmon Vanguard shoots above mottled leaves. The almost indistinct blossoms of Oberonia setigera twirl around droopy filaments.

Five-foot tall Pteris ferns grow on the room's perimeter. Beds made of moss-covered volcanic rock restrain a jungle that includes tropical epiphytic Ericaceae such as Cavendishia grandifolia.

Head through an underground tunnel to the other half of the conservatory, beginning with Deserts of the Americas - a study in soft grey - and Deserts of Africa which shows how plants from different places have evolved to look alike because they grew in similar habitats.

Walk through a long house with giant planters of hot tropicals like red and yellow croton, bougainvillea and staghorn fern, all interspersed with orchids.

The gardenesque-themed show reaches its zenith in the Seasonal Exhibition House. A grand pavilion housing an antique fountain is the center of this Garden of Orchids. Clear blue Vandas, or Rainbow Orchids, grow high on the trellised structure, just as they would grow high in the treetops. Here, Spanish moss adorns their roots.

“Vandas are not that easy to grow," says Falk. “They insist on having no soil around their roots and they require very bright light with lots of humidity."

Pots and beds burgeon with a huge range of complex hybrid moth orchids, fun and funky-looking slipper orchids, and luscious cymbidium. Tall camellia and ficus form a landscaped backdrop to the flowers. The Garden continues along a walkway with peach-colored old coral-stone walls fabricated just for the show. Here, the delicate but tall, showy Nun's Cap orchid grows in soil - one of the few orchids to do so.

Don't miss the show! It runs through April 2. The Orchid Show continues in the Orchid Rotunda in the Library with Vandas on display, and in the Shop in the Garden with 150 book titles on orchids, small specimens of the little beauties themselves, many hard to find and all just right for your windowsill, plus prints, cards, jewelry, tee shirts, soap and shower gel - everything orchid.

Got kids? Walk them down the path to the Everett Children's Adventure Garden to learn where chocolate and vanilla come from, one from an orchid. Taste the beans and check them out under a microscope.

The New York Botanical Garden: www.nybg.org

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