WEBVTT - How Orchids Work 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:14.080 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.439 and there's Charles w Chuck Bryan, there's Jerry rolling back 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.759 again with us, and everything is back to normal. I 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.239 can stop trembling and foaming at the mouth like little 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.520 Danny in the Shining when he was all freaked out. 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.520 What are you talking about? You know what I'm talking about? 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.320 Remember when Danny's like just send there, zoned out, like 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.600 seeing I think the blood coming out of the elevator. 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.000 Why are you doing that right now? Because Jerry wasn't 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.479 around for a while. Remember we had guest producer no 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:48.600 who's great, but he's not Jerry. No. I mean, Jerry 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:54.440 is uh lovely person inside and out. And Noel looks 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:56.640 like somebody that might be falling around a parking lot 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:03.360 in a trench coat sometimes does, but it's beautiful inside 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.360 and under the trench coup. And I'm just kidding, nol 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.280 uh So orchids is what we're talking about today, Chuck. Yeah, 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.399 how you doing? I'm doing good. I'm feeling like nice 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.199 and mellow because I just I researched orchids all morning. 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:23.960 You huff some orkids. M I snorted the orchids. Uh, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.679 this in in real time, just so that people know 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:31.200 is our last recording of the year. How's that for 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.640 a brain buster because it's coming out in the new year. Yeah, 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.080 because we like to take it easy in December. That's 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:43.559 annual stuff. You should know. Tradition is mellow December one month, chuck. 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.440 We we were one December. We closed down almost for 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:48.760 like the entire month. Do you remember? It was great? 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:50.720 And hey, I think we I think we recorded on 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:52.880 like December two or third, and then that was it 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:56.200 until like the beginning of January. Yeah. We love doing 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.000 this and we love our job, but like any job, 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.960 it is also very nice to not do it for 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.640 a few It's like it's like, um, those cocktail wheenies 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.120 you might encounter at a Christmas party or a a holiday 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.160 party this year. You know, you eat like a pound 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.120 and a half of them, You're doing fine. You have 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:14.919 two pounds of them, You're like, I need to take 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.000 a break for a couple of minutes. It's just like that. 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.880 I just made those for Mike party. I love those 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.880 chuff I made them with Uh. I did the Martha 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:28.400 Stewart recipe. No way, it's slightly fancier than you're running 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:32.519 the mill recipe. What does she do to those to 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.680 make them faints? Well, the uh use like a philo 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:39.760 like puff pastry dough instead of your stah. So that's 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.960 that's a little different than I'm talking about. But what else, well, nothing, 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.280 You know, you roll up the little smokey's, you brush 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.640 the inside with a little like honey mustard, roll up 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.200 the little smoky's, and then you brush the top with 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.240 egg because that's how you get a scrambled eggs. That's 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.120 how you get that good golden brown. And then I 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.120 dusted mine with a little rosemary, se salt and sesame seed. Wow. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.520 And then you bake them up, cut him into thirds 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:05.640 and throw them in. I bought my first chafing dish 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:10.400 of my life. You have a chafing dish? No, you 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.400 got me beat. I have a cock pot that doubles 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.600 as a chafing dish. That's the best I can come 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.160 up for man's shaping dish. Yeah, I guess that I 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.400 was way more excited than a middle aged man should 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:25.760 be about his first shaping dish. I gotta say that, No, 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.760 it is pretty impressive. Is it scalloped like the edges 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:30.800 and all that? Is it ornator? Is it like modern 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.560 and clean? No, it's like the stainless steel oval. It's 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.320 not square or like it has It's not a two banger. 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.400 It's just you know, I threw my my sausage balls 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:46.160 and my uh pigs in a blanket, both in there 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.120 together because it's all pork. Actually, I think the little 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.080 smokies were beef. How they think about it? Oh God, 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.040 But it kept it hot all night long. You know 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:58.800 that's great. Well, that's what the chafing dish is supposed 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:00.200 to do, you know. But in years path Us I 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.840 would just put out the hot stuff and say, well, 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.120 eat it now or in thirty minutes. You can eat 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.560 it cold when you're good and drunk, and if you've 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.080 got any complaints, get out. That's how you're famous for 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.320 saying at your Christmas parties. So chuck what you've just 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.039 described as delicious. I'm talking about you know, if you 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.800 just took those smokey's and put them in like a 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:26.240 delicious sauce. Oh that that old trick. Yeah that I mean, 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:28.880 I'll I'll eat what you're making every day of the week. Yeah, 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.520 These things are like, that's like manna from heaven. That 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.479 tangy what is it? It's not just barbecue sauce. That's 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.680 sort of like, I don't know, some mystery gravy. It's 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.640 got a little something extra in it. Martha Stewart probably knows. Well. 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.080 I did sort of the dry version, because there's also 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.800 the sausage balls that you can have floating in that 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.400 stuff too. I'll eat those two. That's fine with me. 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:51.919 I think it's mostly the sauce. You can put anything 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.159 in there and I'll eat it. Uh. Yeah, I did 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.320 the dry pick in the blanket and then the dry 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:01.799 kind of the bis quick cheddar country else. Yea, man chuck, 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:03.640 you were killing it this year, which, by the way, 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.160 are good for breakfast with eggs for the next like 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.520 three days. I know. That's one of the great things 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.599 about throwing a holiday party, or really any party, but 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.400 a holiday party, because there's usually a great spread, is 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:18.600 the next day you get to just chow down. Yeah, 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.120 but it's weird because literally for dinner, I've been eating 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:29.880 like blue cheese and pre judo and sugar cookies and bourbon. Man. Well, 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:35.640 that's that's what they call the holidays. Anyway, So orchids, man, Hey, 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.920 do you have any orchids? No? But I am a big, 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.520 big orchid fan. Okay, I don't own them because I 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:45.720 don't want to kill them. That's how much I love 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.680 orchids is. I don't want them in my home because 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.560 I will kill them dead. You're gonna love this episode then, 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:53.760 because my friend I was once where you are, and 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.279 now I am an orchid raising fool. Oh really yeah, 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:00.960 I've got a six orchids and my I'm not kidding 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:05.719 four of them right now? Have um flowers flowers stem 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:11.760 shooting up? Yes? Did you raise them from pups? Uh? No? No, 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.440 they I mean they were like cuttings. But when I so, 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:16.360 here's the thing. When I bought them, they weren't bloom. 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:21.279 Like when everyone buys an orchid, Well, it's it's in bloom, right, yeah, 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.440 And that's actually a good, good rule of thumb, as 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.640 we'll find out. But everyone buys an orchid in bloom, 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.320 and then the orchid goes out of bloom, the flower 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.760 dies away, and you're like, well that's it for the orchid, 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.760 and you throw it into the trash. No, but I mean, 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:40.960 have you ever heard of anybody getting it to flower again. 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.800 I hadn't and now I'm one of those people who 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.599 has done that. Now I didn't know. I don't know 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:49.560 much about them. I just know that I go to 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.240 every orchids show or exhibit in a city if they 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.480 have one, and I'm there. Okay, So so listen to this. 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.520 It's really really simple. You go out and buy an orchid, 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.279 bring it home and wait, wait, wait, yeah, you want 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:06.960 to and bloom, and then once it stops blooming, it's 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.360 going to um. You're gonna be again. You're gonna be 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:12.440 tempted to just throw it away. You'll say, what use 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.000 are you to anyone? Now? But it's still alive plants. 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.680 So at this point you're gonna commit to repotting it, 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.440 and you can probably reuse the pot. It came in 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.080 a nice plastic pot that has lots of holes in it, 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.080 and you're gonna take You're gonna pull off that moss 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.920 that it came with. It probably came with sphagnum moss. 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:31.640 You're gonna pull it off because it's really tough to 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:34.600 work with if you're a novice. And then you're going 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.760 to put that they just the roots of the orchid 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.080 back into the pot with nothing in it, and then 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:44.240 you're gonna fill it in with wood chips orchid potting 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.960 mixed wood chips, and you're gonna put enough in there 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.240 to stabilize the orchid and it'll grow more and more 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.480 stable as it gets back used to its pot again. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:54.320 But that's what you You You want to switch out the 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.520 moss for the wood chips. You want to water them 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.280 once a week, and you want to fertilize them about 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.760 once a week too. So on to say, Saturday, you 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.920 water them and then on Sunday you water them with 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.040 a little fertilizer. You do that once a week while 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.280 they're in their growth pattern or they're they're growing and 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.880 they're not dormant, and you will you will have happy orchids. 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.200 I promise you. It's it's way easier than you think. 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.320 Well I didn't think it was not easy. I just 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.440 an orchid. Once it loses its its leaves or it's flower, 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:35.200 it's just a sad um vine twisty tied to a chopstick. Right. 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.240 You want to give rid of the chopstick because it 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:42.440 is it's a depressing reminder of what was. It's true, 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:44.480 But you want to hang on too because you're gonna 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.920 get that thing to flower again if you take it, 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.120 like the orchid just challenged you to see if you 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.440 could get it to flower again. It makes it a 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:56.200 fun little game. Yeah, that's one way to look at it. 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:58.800 Your nemesis or like a friend in need, one of 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.559 the two. Yeah, but in kild is should not pick 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:03.760 a fight with me because I could choke the life 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.320 out of that skinny little thing. You could so fast. 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.800 So this this whole discussion about orchids, right, and the 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.400 fact that like you can go buy them anywhere you want, 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.080 from you know, one big box store to another big 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.760 box store, take your picture. You can find them at 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.120 every single nursery just about anywhere in the world. They 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.680 live in nature on six continents. But all the fact 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.000 that they're they're so ubiquitous and they're so cheap has 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:36.320 to do with um basically England's entrance into an orchid 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.720 craze in the Victorian era. Yeah, orchid Mania. In the 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:45.400 mid nineteenth century, England would send orchid hunters all over 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:51.560 the world to plunder these exotic flowers from Central and 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.120 South America. That sounds like nineteenth century England. Yeah, to 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.000 the point where, uh, a lot of these were named 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.079 after these plunder rs or orchid hunters, which is kind 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:03.640 of stinks, you know when you think about it, because 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.000 I'm sure they already had great names in South America. 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.400 They didn't just say, hey, future to be named flower 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:13.679 flower to be named later after English white man. Uh, 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:15.920 they had great names, I bet. But so they went 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.120 down there and they would brag about this one guy, 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:23.800 Frederick Sanders, Frederick Sander, he was the royal orchid grower 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.320 of Queen Victoria's England, and uh, he would, you know, 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.040 he would write home and brag, like, trust me, there's 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.680 no more orchids left, I got them all. Yeah. But 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.800 but he was actually probably not too far off because 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.680 there's a lot, a lot, a lot of different orchid frieties. 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:44.640 I think there's like something I saw twenty thousand, I 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.280 saw thousand. I've seen as high as thirty thousand species 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:52.280 of orchids around the world. There's two hundred thousand hybrid 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:57.040 versions since humans came into the picture. Um, but there's 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:02.000 not necessarily that many orchids for species. So these orchid 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.080 hunters were going and finding these things that were basically 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.320 considered one of a kind flowers as far as anyone 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.559 back in England was concerned, there was no other flower 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.440 that anybody they knew had ever seen that looked like this. Right, 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:18.680 So these were enormous status symbols and they fetched tens 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:22.760 of thousands of dollars sometimes in in mid nineteenth century 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.040 British money, not today's money. So they were basically like 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.440 you had to be royalty to own orchids at first 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.160 when they first started bringing them back to the UK. Yeah, 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.199 And how crappy is it that they wouldn't go down 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.840 there and be like, well, these are beautiful and amazing, 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:37.880 like here, we're gonna take some and learn how to 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:42.000 propagate these and you keep the rest. They're like, okay, 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.240 we're taking all these, thank you. Yeah, and let me 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.440 just set your village on fire for good measure on 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.320 my way out of town. So um, that's how the 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.520 orchid craz started out. And there's this pretty good article 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:59.240 by Michael Poland, the famous Omnivores Dilemma author. Um. He 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.040 wrote this back like two nine, called Love and Lies, 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.040 and it's just basically him just waxing flowery about how 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.520 great orchids are and how deceptive they are and all 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.160 the different ways they have of tricking other animals into 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.680 and appollinating them. Um. But one of the points he makes, 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:19.120 which is actually kind of legitimate, that not only have 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.920 like all these bees and wasps and other animals that 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.840 are tricked into pollinating orchids for various reasons. Yeah, not 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.240 only have they fallen under the orchids spelled. Probably the 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.680 most successful thing orchids ever did was to manage to 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:38.760 beguile humans, because we've taken them and propagated them all 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.160 over the world. And now they've come down from tens 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.480 of thousands of dollars and and you know, or tens 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:47.520 of thousands of pounds I should say, in mid nineteenth 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:52.640 century pounds um two what ten twenty bucks depending on 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:54.720 the size of the orchid, and you can get it 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.600 just about anywhere. And that's all because of humans can 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:00.280 get orchid out of a bubblegum machine these days. You 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.959 can be very specialized one, but you can. Uh. Well, 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.040 let's take a break here because I'm pretty excited, uh, 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:10.400 and I need to settle down, and then we'll come 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:12.960 back and talk about why we love these things so 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:41.600 much right after this, all right, So why humans love 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:46.360 or kids Part one? Um, besides the fact that they 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.240 look just amazing to the eye and they're so delicate 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:54.319 but also very hardy. Uh, they're symmetrical. They have bilateral symmetry, 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:59.079 and the science has proven that symmetry is attractive in humans. Um. 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.160 I know we've talked before about the fact that people 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:07.080 whose faces are more symmetrical or biologically more attractive than 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.040 than people like me which have You know, my face 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.760 is all over the place. One side, I know what 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.520 the other side is doing at any time. Yeah, and yeah, 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.320 with bilateral symmetry, it's it's like one half as mirror 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.080 image of the other half. And there's not that many 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:24.200 flowers in nature that that have bilateral symmetry, right, So 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:26.880 that's a pretty good initial theory. Yeah, And I mean, 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.440 I don't think people even realize that maybe what's going 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.920 on subconsciously when they look at an orchid and revel 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:34.480 in its beauty. That's one of the things you're just 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:36.840 you're not even maybe noticing, you know what I'm saying. 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:44.280 It's subluminal or subconscious close enough, close enough. So another 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.240 theory is that they look um quite vaginal in in nature. 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.080 A lot of them do, especially some of the most 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:56.600 common ones like Pholonopsis um have this. Well, at the 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.240 very least, you can say George O'Keefe definitely saw it right. Yeah, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.720 And you know clearly throughout history, the Greeks and and 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.120 you're not the first one to say that, like, they 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:10.280 have often been thought of his aphrodisiacs. And part of 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.200 that reason is from the way they look, right. And 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.040 actually it's just so plainly obvious that during that orchid 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:21.840 craze in Victorian England, which is also called orchid delirium 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.120 or kid delirium, I think it's doesn't exactly roll off 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:29.840 the tongue, but they there were people who were roundly 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:35.240 opposed to that whole craze because of the overt sexuality 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:41.080 that orchid flowers broadcast. The most lurid flower. Yeah, because 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.240 you know, you catch like the town weirdo and like 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.640 your greenhouse. That's all you need to say, right, get 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:52.000 out of there now, they're no exactly he turned turned 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:57.479 the pump pose on them. Oh so so so there's 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:00.440 but there's there's um, there's another whole kind of over 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.320 sexuality to the whole thing too. And just the name 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:07.760 of orchids is I think Latin or Greek. Do you 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.840 remember which one? I don't remember. It's either Latin or 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.680 Greek for um, it's Greek for testical. Yeah, orchid the word, 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.280 and it refers to the shape of the bulb, the 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.040 orchid bulb. So people have been looking at orchids and 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.600 thinking very impure thoughts about flowers for a very long time. 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.800 Uh So this isn't just me, this isn't just Uncle 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.800 Josh getting weird on you. It's I'm following in a 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.160 long tradition of and actually I'm not even doing anything myself. 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.720 I'm just recounting. I'm reporting what other people have said before. Yeah, 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.040 you just have a large collection of orchids and Georgia 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:47.400 o'kee paintings and um and a French coat. So it's 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:49.560 a very normal habit for a middle aged man to 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.480 suddenly get into. It's actually really relaxing though. It's it's 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:58.120 it's it's cool just to care for him. It's well, 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.000 like I said, they're very delicate, but they're incredibly hearty, 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:02.680 which is kind of one of the cool things. And 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.240 they come in um like, you can't just describe an 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.200 orchid like this article says, that's like trying to describe 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.680 what's normal about any human being. There are so many 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.080 varieties and they all look so different, and they're all 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:21.520 manner of shapes and sizes and colors. Even though supposedly 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.359 not a true black or true blue, even though you 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:26.200 will see something that you will say, well that's blue 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:31.440 or black, it's really not right whatever true means, which 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.439 means that there's some orchid fans out there who are 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.879 trying to propagate true true black and true blue orchids 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.840 right now. Yeah, they're really like deep purple's usually variations 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.520 of purple, which is fine. They look great. I'm not 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:49.439 not knocking it. Thanks for coming out. So the the 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.400 um the fact that despite the fact that there are 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.280 so many different shape, sizes, colors, they do all sorts 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.960 of different stuff. They live in different places. Um. People 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:03.000 have attempted to kind of broadly classify or chids. One 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:04.960 of the first ways they do it is from their 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:09.280 growth habit and that you can divide orchids into two types. 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.200 From their monopodial which is if you're at like one 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:18.199 of those big box home stores. I'm not buzz marketing man, 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.639 I'm not gonna do it. You You're probably going to 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.439 find Foulonopsis because they're the easiest ones to care for, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.520 they're the least fussy um. They're the ones that most 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:31.119 people are familiar with, but apparently they're the least common 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.639 out in the wild. But they have like an upright 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.040 growth pattern where they have a single stem with leaves 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.480 on either side of the stem growing opposite one another 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:43.720 UM and they shoot out a flower stem from the 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:48.040 top part of the bottom pair of leaves correct uh. 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.240 And then on the other side you have the more 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.520 common one, which is the simpodial uh. And these are beautiful. 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.560 These are the ones that grow horizontally uh, and they 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.680 send out their shoots through the old rhizome and the 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.399 leaves and flower escapes at that point form at the 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.560 top of the new shoots right. So one that grows 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.880 grows from like a horizontal rhizome to one that grows 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.440 upright vertically like you would think of a typical plant. 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.520 That's that's basically the two ways that an orchid's going 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.080 to grow as a plant. Another way that they classify 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:24.240 them too, is where they live. Because there are some 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.399 types of orchids that grow like what you would consider 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.480 a normal plant out of soil. Some grow out of 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.840 leaf litter. Those are called terrestrial orchids. Then there's the 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.919 kind that you typically think of grow on like trees 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.159 or on plants, or where a branch meets like a 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:43.040 tree round the actual trunk the bark of a tree. 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:47.960 Those are called epiphytes. And then lastly there's um lithophytes, 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.520 which grow on rocks but basically do the same thing 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:52.879 that the ones that grow on trees do, which is 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.399 they're harvesting nutrients from the decomposing litter that accumulates in 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.399 the grooves of the tree bark or where the elbow 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.439 of the branch hits the tree trunk. Um, all the 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:07.080 stuff that accumulates there. The roots of the orchid are 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.719 just sucking that stuff up. Yeah, but so it's not 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.880 like stealing nutrients from the thing that it grows on. Yeah, 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:15.800 they're not parasitic, And I thought it was great that 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.840 this article went went to the trouble of making that 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:21.560 for that point. But um, so they don't have a 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.640 parasitic relationship with trees. They do have a symbiotic relationship 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:30.120 with fungus, actually, so much so that they can't they 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.680 can't survive the first few stages of their life cycle 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.040 without a specific type of fungus basically acting as a 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:41.200 nurse maid for the seed and the young plant as 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:45.159 it's growing. Yeah, Like I mean, if you have a 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:49.359 lot of time and a lot of patients and a 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:53.680 lot of orchid wherewithal you can try to grow these 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:58.200 from seed, but it can take a decade to get 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.960 a flower from seed. And that's if you're really like, 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.640 that's if the thing lives. Like. Orchid seeds are so 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:10.600 tiny they're called dust seeds, and how they propagate is 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:14.159 there there need to be millions of these dispersed in 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.800 order to get orchids to grow at all. Right, And 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:20.040 so if it's like an epiphyte that grows it's a 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.439 variety that grows on tree bark, this seed has to 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:27.720 get carried away from the mother plant all the way 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:30.680 over to some other tree land in just the right 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.760 place on that tree bark, and then there has to 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.480 be the certain type of fungus that it has the 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:40.480 symbiotic relationship with that it can grow into the seed 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.520 and feed it nutrients while the seed is developing and germinating. 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.520 That has to happen. It doesn't happen very often, which 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:51.119 is why orchids are known for sending, like you said, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:54.159 millions and millions of seeds just out there into the 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.840 ether and hoping that something sticks. It's like the orchids 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.360 way of throwing spaghetti at the wall. Yeah. Mean, it's 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:04.080 amazing that they did not go bye bye, and that 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:06.600 they've been around for eighty million years, I know. And 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:08.720 one of the one of the things is that Michael 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:12.080 Poland article is so great about this, like it's saying 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:16.800 like they have they're so maladapted in some ways that 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.520 they've had to get really creative in other ways, um 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:26.840 and and to ensure their survival. Like for example, an orchid, Uh, 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:31.520 they have pollen, right, they they're pollinating flowering plants, right, 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:34.520 But when you normally think of pollen, you think of 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:37.919 you know, the yellow stuff that powdery spores that just 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:40.640 you know, hit the wind and they just cover everything, 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:43.879 like everything is covered in yellow plant sperm basically is 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.880 what it is. Right. So, but it's true. So with 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:51.960 a with an orchid, they have something called pollinia, and 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:55.760 pollinia are their sacks of pollen. But they're not like 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:57.879 the powdery kind. They're like about the size of a 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:01.920 little grain of wheat, and in a in an orchid flower, 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:05.680 you have the reproductive column. It has the female reproductive 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:08.119 parts and the male reproductive parts all in the same place. 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:13.960 Right somewhere somewhere in there, there's that pollinia, and one 0:23:13.960 --> 0:23:16.800 way or another, which we'll get into, that pollinia has 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.679 to get out of that orchid through no mechanism of 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:22.879