Orchids and Their Lives Full of Fame Vol. 1

     Dear Orchid lovers. As you know Orchidaceae (Orchid family) is believed to be the largest family of flowering plants, with approximately 21950 – 26049 species in 880 genera (1 & 2). To better understand it well we can compare this number with bird species and mammal species. The Orchid species number is more than twice of all bird species and about four times of mammal species of the world. This is a big number, isn’t it? Not enough? OK, think that it encompasses 6 – 11% of all seed plants… We can show more stunning numbers. Anyway, I think you’ ve satisfied.

   The largest genera of Orchidaceae is Bulbophyllum with 2000 species. After Bulbophyllum we can order Epidendrum (1500 species), Dendrobium (1400 species) and Pleurothallis (1000 species). After some systematic features of Orchidaceae we can explore the uses of Orchids.

     According to Reinnika (2003), Orchids were cultivated 3000 years ago in China (3). These plants were known the symbol of love, richness and beauty. Maybe this is the reason why women love Orchids?
     Chinese the most famous philosopher Confucius has named Orchids as “The King of Fragrant Plants”. In addition to their aesthetic beauties, Orchids were used as food, herbal drog, decorative item and aphrodisiac (4). Many thing to tell Orchids’ fame; one of the best way is Shakespeare’ s Hamlet. He explains two Orchid species like this;

“…There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;

There with fantastic garlands did she come,

Of crow – flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men’ s fingers call them…”

In this lyric, the “long purples” dedicated to Orchis mascula, and the “dead men’ s finger” is dedicated to Orchis latifolia.

In many lyrics, many stories and the depts of history, people are always influenced by Orchids. And now these plants are endangered by Salep collectors.

Salep is a flour that made from grinding the dried tubers of some Orchids which have ovoid tubers such as Orchis mascula, Orchis militaris etc. These ovoid tubers have starch – like polysaccaride called glucomannan. Salep is traditional drink in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and some middle east countries. The salep name, comes from Arabic “ḥasyu al-tha`lab” sentence. It means “fox testicles”  in English. And “Orchid” also means testicle in Greek. Turkish people calls this drink as “Salep”. Hereafter I will call its name as “Salep”.

The drogs made from Orchids were used in many medical and herbal cures in past. Please see Table 1, you will find uses of drogs made from Orchids.

Table 1: Uses of terrestrial European Orchids (Bulpitt, 2005)(5).

As you can see in the Table 1, medicinal uses of Orchids have widespread using area. This is the reason why Orchids being destroyed for many years. The most common usages of Orchids are in form of food.


                                                                                        Kaan HÜRKAN
                                                                                       Biologist, M.Sc.

In the second part of my article I will talk on the stories of being destroyed of Orchids and Salep. I’ m sure you will be interested…

  

References

1) Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website Version 9, June 2008.

2)  World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. Retrieved 2010.

3) Reinnikka, M. A., 1997. A History of Orchid. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon.

4) Kreutz, C. A. J., 2009. Türkiye Orkideleri. Rota Yayınları, Türkiye. ISBN: 978-605-4015-07-8.

5) Bulpitt, C. J., 2005. The Uses And Misuses of Orchids in Medicine. Occasional paper. Q J Med 2005; 98:625–631.