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Speaker 1: Hey listeners, we have got some live shows coming up. Sunday,

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Speaker 1: July at two pm, we will be doing a live

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Speaker 1: podcast at Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts. The

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Speaker 1: show will be outdoors on the bil Estate Lawn at

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Speaker 1: one one Adam Street in Quincy. Then on Saturday, July

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Speaker 1: twenty one, we'll be doing a live podcast at Convention

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Speaker 1: Days at Women's Rights National Historical Park and Seneca Falls,

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Speaker 1: New York. That show will be at four pm and

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Speaker 1: Wesleyan Chapple And we also have East Coast and West

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Speaker 1: Coast tours coming up in August and October, with stops

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Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Georgia, Raleigh, North Carolina, Somerville, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, New York, Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C, Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles and

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Speaker 1: San Francisco, California. You can find more information about all

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Speaker 1: of these shows and links to my tickets at missed

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Speaker 1: in History dot com slash Tour. Welcome to stuph you

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Speaker 1: missed in History class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm

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Speaker 1: Tracy V. Wilson. And if you listen to the to

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Speaker 1: Lipmania episode that Sarah and Deblina. Did you know already

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Speaker 1: that sometimes people go a little mad in their obsessions

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Speaker 1: when it comes to plants, And today we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about another episode in history in which plants became

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Speaker 1: a status symbol and the cornerstone of a high dollar industry.

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Speaker 1: And while we're not really going to talk about him

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Speaker 1: later on in this episode, I did want to mention

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Speaker 1: that this one also brushes up against our episode on

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Speaker 1: Joseph Paxton and the Crystal Palace, because Paxton also cultivated

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Speaker 1: gardens and built a conservatory for William Cavendish, the sixth

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Speaker 1: Duke of Devonshire, also known as the Bachelor Duke, and

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Speaker 1: in that job he gathered the largest collection in England

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Speaker 1: for his royal employer. The Bachelor Duke had also fallen

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Speaker 1: victim to orchid delirium, which was an intense obsession with

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Speaker 1: the plants that was sweeping through Victorian England at the time,

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Speaker 1: and that is what we're talking about today. So orchids

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Speaker 1: date back at least twenty million years and two thousand

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Speaker 1: and seven a bee was discovered. It was preserved in

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Speaker 1: amber and it dated back that far and also still

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Speaker 1: had orchid pollen. Stuck to its wings. A fossilized orchid

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Speaker 1: from New Zealand as dated back twenty one million years

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Speaker 1: It's possible that orchids existed as far back as the

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Speaker 1: Late Cretaceous period around eighty million years ago, or maybe

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Speaker 1: even longer. Yes, so they survived when the dinosaurs did not.

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Speaker 1: Orchids grow all over the world. The only inhospitable areas

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Speaker 1: are open water, true deserts, and glaciers, and there are

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Speaker 1: species of orchids that grow from the ground, but a

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Speaker 1: lot of varieties are epiphytes, meaning that they grow on

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Speaker 1: other plants or rocks. Some even grow on fungus. They

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Speaker 1: are sometimes mentioned as being parasitic. That's not actually the case.

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Speaker 1: They're getting the nutrients from the air around them. They

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Speaker 1: just kind of need a place to perch. And unsurprisingly

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Speaker 1: for a plant family that can thrive in so many

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Speaker 1: different places, there is a vast range of species of orchid.

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Speaker 1: There are more than twenty seven thousand species of orchid.

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Speaker 1: Some sources will list that number is even higher. More

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Speaker 1: are being discovered all the time. This incredible range makes

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Speaker 1: the taxonomy of the orchidacey challenging. The flowers of orchids

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Speaker 1: can range from single flowering plants to multiple blooms on

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Speaker 1: a stalk, and this is the most diverse flower family.

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Speaker 1: Orchids are usually pollinated by insects or birds, and the

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Speaker 1: plants have evolved to make themselves as appealing as possible

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Speaker 1: to their pollinators. A lot of times the plants have

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Speaker 1: a pedal or leaf shapes that enable pollinators to rest

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Speaker 1: on the plant while they're making a visit. An estimated

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Speaker 1: one third of orchid species have figured out some kind

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Speaker 1: of trickery to ensure their propagation. So there are varieties

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Speaker 1: that look and smell female bees so that solitary males

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Speaker 1: will come and spread their pollen around. The Dracula orchid

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Speaker 1: attracts insects that usually eat dung by emitting a lot

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Speaker 1: of different horrifying smells that reproduce the sense of not

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Speaker 1: just animal excrement, but also urine and decaying meat. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's one of those plants where I will admit just

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Speaker 1: because I like gothic thing. It's by a virtue of

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Speaker 1: it being called the dracula orchid. I'm like yes, and

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Speaker 1: then knowing what it smells like. Hard pass. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: slipper orchid has a really unique structure that first offers

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Speaker 1: an inviting drink from its pouch like structure that's like

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Speaker 1: the pedal on the bottom is kind of shaped like

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Speaker 1: a little pouch, and then that will trap insects attracted

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Speaker 1: to it in the pouch with only one way out,

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Speaker 1: and that path involves the insect passing through usually a

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Speaker 1: tight opening that ensures that its body is covered with

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Speaker 1: pollen grains pollinia, and then once free, when that insect

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Speaker 1: is drawn to the next loom, those pollen grains are

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Speaker 1: deposited and new ones are picked up, and so on.

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Speaker 1: A single orchid plant can produce as many as seventy

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Speaker 1: four million seeds, and in the while they require exposure

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Speaker 1: to a symbiotic fungus to germinate. In controlled conditions like

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Speaker 1: nurseries and home germination, a special growing medium is used instead.

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Speaker 1: Orchids can also propagate a sexually through division when a

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Speaker 1: single plant splits into two actively growing pieces. Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: division approach was used a lot by some of the

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Speaker 1: people that we will be talking about later. The other

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Speaker 1: thing that I think we should mention is that a

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Speaker 1: lot of these orchids are so specific in the way

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Speaker 1: they have evolved to attract one specific pollinator and it

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Speaker 1: becomes a really unique relationship. Orchids have of course been

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Speaker 1: revered by humans throughout recorded history. They were thought to

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Speaker 1: have aphrodisiac qualities. In ancient Greece, they were used to

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Speaker 1: flavor food but the Aztecs and they have been used

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Speaker 1: in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries to treat everything from

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Speaker 1: lung and kidney disease to tonsilitis and even cancer. While

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Speaker 1: studying the anglicam Sesquepedale, Charles Darwin came to the conclusion

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Speaker 1: that this flower, which has a really deep bloom and

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Speaker 1: then a nectary, which is the glandular organ that secretes nectar,

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Speaker 1: sometimes as deep as thirty centimeters, which is a little

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Speaker 1: over eleven inches. They concluded that it must have evolved

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Speaker 1: alongside a moth species that had a unique trait to

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Speaker 1: allow it to be pollinated. So to explain how this

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Speaker 1: flower with this very deep well could be pollinated, he

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Speaker 1: theorized that a moth must have a proboscis that could

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Speaker 1: extend up to almost the length of the entire flower's depth.

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Speaker 1: And this particular bit of orchid study has become really

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Speaker 1: famous because coevolution at this point was a very new idea,

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Speaker 1: and because Darwin did not have a moth specimen to

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Speaker 1: back up this theory, Charles Darwin died in eighty two

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Speaker 1: without ever having his hypothesis confirmed. In nineteen o seven, though,

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Speaker 1: a subspecies of the giant congo moths, which came from Madagascar,

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Speaker 1: just as Darwin's orchid samples had, was discovered. This moth subspecies,

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Speaker 1: named ex Morghani predicta, was approximately sixteen centimeters from wing

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Speaker 1: tip to wing tip, and it had a proboscis which

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Speaker 1: sat coiled on its head and then could extend twenty

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Speaker 1: centimeters or more. It seemed to fit the bill, but

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Speaker 1: it wasn't until nine more than a century after Darwin's death,

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Speaker 1: that scientists were finally able to actually observe and capture

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Speaker 1: footage of these large moths pollinating those orchids. It looks

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Speaker 1: really cool, it does, it's really neat. But what's important

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Speaker 1: for today's show in terms of the work that Darwin

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Speaker 1: was doing with or kids, is that it all happened

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Speaker 1: in the second half of the nineteenth century, and at

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Speaker 1: the same time, particularly in Victorian England, orchid delirium was

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Speaker 1: becoming a significant phenomenon. Botanist William John Swainson is often

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Speaker 1: credited with introducing orchids from Brazil to Great Britain and

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Speaker 1: sparking the obsession with these flowers, but that happened actually

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Speaker 1: by accident, at least according to legend. So the story

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Speaker 1: goes that Swainson had picked up a number of other

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Speaker 1: plant samples to ship back home to England in the

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Speaker 1: eighteen teens, and he used unbloomed orchids, which he believed

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Speaker 1: at the time to be weeds, as packing material, and

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Speaker 1: the orchids bloomed either en route to their destination or

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Speaker 1: just after the parcels were unpacked, depending on your source,

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Speaker 1: and immediately captured the attention of everyone who saw them.

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Speaker 1: As Great Britain continued to expand its power through colonization,

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Speaker 1: exoticism flourished. People of means became collectors of rare and

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Speaker 1: exciting things from all around the world, and orchids became

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Speaker 1: an obsession for some of them. Naturally, a cottage industry

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Speaker 1: grew to fill this expanding demand for these blooms, and

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Speaker 1: the second half of the nineteen century saw the business

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Speaker 1: of orchid collecting growing and selling, reaching cutthroat levels of competition,

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Speaker 1: and coming up, we're going to talk about a man

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Speaker 1: who came to be known as the orchid King. But

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Speaker 1: first we're gonna pause for a word from one of

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Speaker 1: our sponsors. One of the most famous entrepreneurs to capitalize

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Speaker 1: on orchid delirium was Frederick Sander. Sander was born in

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Speaker 1: Germany in eighteen forty seven, and at the age of

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Speaker 1: twenty he had moved to London and started working for

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Speaker 1: a seed company. But he didn't stay there for long

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Speaker 1: because while he was working there, he met a Czechoslovakian

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Speaker 1: botanist named Benedict Rosal, and before long the two men

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Speaker 1: decided to go into business together. Rosal was more than

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Speaker 1: twenty years older than Sander. We've been working with plants

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Speaker 1: since he was twelve, first as an apprentice gardener and

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Speaker 1: then tending the gardens of European aristocracy. In the eighteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: he had moved to Mexico and set up a hemp nursery,

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Speaker 1: but he had an accident. There was a machine that

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Speaker 1: he invented to clean hemp fiber, and it severed one

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Speaker 1: of his hands. He went back to Europe before switching

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Speaker 1: careers to become a plant hunter. And he replaced that

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Speaker 1: lost hand with a hook, and according to legend, that

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Speaker 1: gave him some added cache a on his adventures. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he apparently was very tall, striking man to begin with,

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Speaker 1: and then when he had this hook hand, it kind

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Speaker 1: of fulfills every like Victorian romantic novel fantasy of like

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Speaker 1: a rough and rugged person um. And he has kind

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Speaker 1: of talked about that way even today when you read

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Speaker 1: about him in books about orchids. And when Rosal met Sander,

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Speaker 1: he had been collecting plants abroad for some time, but

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Speaker 1: he had never had a partner who could receive them

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Speaker 1: and then sell the inventory back home, which meant that

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Speaker 1: he would have to travel back and forth with the plants,

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Speaker 1: and it cut down on his time to collect, and

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Speaker 1: because he had been a one man operation, his success

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Speaker 1: was modest. But once Rosal teamed up with Sander, that

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Speaker 1: changed rapidly. The two of them set up shop in

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Speaker 1: the St Albans district north of London. Sander had a

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Speaker 1: great head for business, and Roseal just no longer encumbered

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Speaker 1: by having to worry about the fate of his shipments.

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Speaker 1: Once they reached England, could just keep on collecting without

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Speaker 1: any kind of constraint. They were quickly trading in orchids

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Speaker 1: and volumes that were way beyond anything that had done before.

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Speaker 1: They had a warehouse adjacent to their shop that was

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Speaker 1: literally packed to the rafters with stock. Rosell worked for

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Speaker 1: decades with Sander, making trips all over the world to

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Speaker 1: collect orchids before he retired a very wealthy man, with

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Speaker 1: dozens of plants named after him and having discovered more

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Speaker 1: than eight hundred different species. In eighteen seventy three, Frederick

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Speaker 1: Sander built his first greenhouse so that he could cultivate

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Speaker 1: his own seedlings as well as importing stock. But within

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Speaker 1: a few years it became obvious that he was really

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Speaker 1: quickly going to deplete that space, so in eighty one

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Speaker 1: he left the seed shop and he expanded significantly to

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Speaker 1: a four acre parcel of land where he built five

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Speaker 1: dozen green houses. He also contracted additional orchid hunters, eventually

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Speaker 1: employing twenty three men to travel the globe and find

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Speaker 1: him new plants. He also wrote a four volume compendium

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Speaker 1: of orchids titled reich Embacchia or Chids Illustrated and Described.

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Speaker 1: It had illustrations by Henry George Moon, which are beautiful

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Speaker 1: It described almost two hundred species of orchid and was

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Speaker 1: published over the course of several years in the late

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighties. In eighteen eighty six, Sander became Queen Victoria's

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Speaker 1: official royal orchid grower, a title which also gave his

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Speaker 1: business a boost. He had also incidentally dedicated one of

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Speaker 1: the volumes of reich Imbachia to her, and Sander used

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Speaker 1: his high volume of acquisition and production to expand his

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Speaker 1: customer base. Eventually, even middle income plant enthusiasts could afford

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Speaker 1: to possess an orchid Because of his work, Sander opened

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Speaker 1: a nursery across the Atlantic in New Jersey to fill demand,

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Speaker 1: but he found running it long distance to just be

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Speaker 1: too difficult, and he sold that business in eighteen ninety six.

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Speaker 1: Two years before he got rid of that North American nursery,

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Speaker 1: he had opened another nursery outside of Bruges, Belgium, and

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Speaker 1: the Belgium enterprise, being much closer to London, was more

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Speaker 1: easily manageable for Sander. He could go over there and

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Speaker 1: stay for a while and handle things, but also quickly

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Speaker 1: travel back home to oversee things in the London office,

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Speaker 1: and that Belgium office quickly expanded, just as his English

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Speaker 1: compound had. I think it too, ended up with about

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Speaker 1: five dozen greenhouses, and that one also diversified a lot

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Speaker 1: and carried a really wide variety of plants, including azalea's

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Speaker 1: lilies and palms. Sander was well respected. He had a

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Speaker 1: reputation as an honest, direct and energetic businessman. His love

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Speaker 1: of orchids seemed to have been really genuine, and he

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Speaker 1: won a lot of awards at international exhibitions for both

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Speaker 1: new species that he introduced and for hybrids that were

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Speaker 1: developed in his nurseries. Dealing in orchids was in some

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Speaker 1: ways kind of like trading stocks today, where the values

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Speaker 1: of plants could fluctuate wildly over short periods of time.

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Speaker 1: At one point, according to an account by Sander, he

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Speaker 1: sold an orchid to a lawyer from Liverpool for twelve dollars,

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Speaker 1: which already was probably not the tiniest amount you could

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Speaker 1: imagine paying for a flower. But then five years later

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Speaker 1: that attorney sold it back to him for a thousand

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Speaker 1: and While Sander enjoyed the wheeling and dealing, receiving shipments,

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Speaker 1: and tending the nurseries, the men that he was sending

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Speaker 1: out into the world to find new orchids, were literally

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Speaker 1: risking their lives. To give a sense of just how

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Speaker 1: perilous this work was. According to the book The Woodlands Orchids,

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Speaker 1: written by Frederick Boyle and published in nineteen o one,

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Speaker 1: French orchid hunter Leon Humboldt had relayed to the author

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Speaker 1: that while he was collecting orchids in Madagascar, he and

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Speaker 1: his brother had hosted a dinner in Tamatave, which is

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Speaker 1: now known more commonly I believes Thomasina. Twelve months after

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Speaker 1: that dinner, Leon Humboldt was the only man from that

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Speaker 1: table left alive. As orchid hunters made their way around

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Speaker 1: the globe, they really really often met with bad ends.

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Speaker 1: Some of them were murdered, some of them died after

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Speaker 1: run ends with wild animals, a lot of them died

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Speaker 1: of tropical diseases, and some of them just vanished. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there were instances where they were murdered, sometimes by

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Speaker 1: other plant hunters. This was really a very cutthroat business.

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Speaker 1: Hunter William Arnold drowned in the Arena Co River in

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Speaker 1: Venezuela while he was hunting for specimens, and that was

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Speaker 1: after he had barely avoided a high probability of death

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Speaker 1: in a duel with another orchid hunter over a disagreement.

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Speaker 1: The duel never actually quite happened, but they were right

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Speaker 1: up to it. Even Benedict Rosel, who was very successful

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Speaker 1: at all of this, met with grave misfortune in his travels.

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Speaker 1: He was robbed at gun or knife point, or sometimes both,

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Speaker 1: seventeen times over his career. His nephew, frances At Klabock,

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Speaker 1: died of yellow fever after the two of them went

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Speaker 1: on an expedition together. William Mikolitz was one of Sander's

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Speaker 1: best agents, and Sander was relentless in pushing him. There

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Speaker 1: were numerous occasions where the man met with ill fortune

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Speaker 1: and he would cable back to Sander that the trip

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Speaker 1: had gone really awry and he wanted to return to

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Speaker 1: England to regroup, and Sander always told him, no, no,

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Speaker 1: stay there, go back collect more samples. And at one

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Speaker 1: point he even sent him to Columbia when the country

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Speaker 1: was very dangerous to travel in due to violent internal conflict.

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Speaker 1: That conflict have been going on for a long long time,

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Speaker 1: but there were times when it escalated and Sander did

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Speaker 1: not care. He just sent him in to get more flowers.

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Speaker 1: There was a particularly violent experience in Papua New Guinea

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Speaker 1: and which Michael Its witnessed several beheadings and dismemberments, and

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Speaker 1: that left him really shaken and desperate to go back home,

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Speaker 1: but on orders, he stayed there and found more orchids.

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Speaker 1: He survived his career as an orchid hunter, but he

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Speaker 1: didn't wind up retiring in style. He was almost destitute

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Speaker 1: when he died back home in Germany. There's one story,

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Speaker 1: and I feel like we had mentioned in all of

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Speaker 1: these stories that the people that were telling them were

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Speaker 1: the men who survived, So there is also the probability

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Speaker 1: that some embellishment may have happened in this case. Michoelitz

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Speaker 1: did survive, but there is a story that at one

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Speaker 1: point he had been in the midst of an area

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Speaker 1: that had had a lot of violence for a long

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Speaker 1: time due to various internal conflicts. He had wanted to leave,

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Speaker 1: Sanders sent him back and he ended up finding this

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Speaker 1: orchid that was really prized, but it was growing on

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Speaker 1: a dead body, so he had to kind of steal

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Speaker 1: himself just to collect the flower. Uh. That poor man

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Speaker 1: to me just seems like so abused in that relationship.

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Speaker 1: But another orchid hunter Albert Milliken had several successful expeditions,

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Speaker 1: and he actually penned a very popular book about his job,

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Speaker 1: titled Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter. But unfortunately

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Speaker 1: he took one too many trips. He was stabbed to

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Speaker 1: death on his last mission. In the Andes and cont Us,

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Speaker 1: there was a pair of brothers, William and Thomas Lobb,

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Speaker 1: who worked as plant hunters for Bitch Nurseries. They both

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Speaker 1: managed to retire from plant hunting rather than dying on

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Speaker 1: the job. While there were definitely a number of business

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Speaker 1: dramas in their lives and there was a great deal

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Speaker 1: of adventure, the two of the bandage traveling separately to

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Speaker 1: collect a wide variety of plant species, a lot of

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Speaker 1: them are still common in gardens today, and they died

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Speaker 1: after settling down after their wilder exploits. Yeah, I actually

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Speaker 1: have some plans to do an episode just on the

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Speaker 1: two of them in the not so distant future. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And next up, we're gonna delve into just how very

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Speaker 1: tricky it was for orchid hunters to get their found

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Speaker 1: prizes back to Europe, provided that they collected them and

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Speaker 1: did not die along the way. But first we're gonna

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Speaker 1: take a little sponsor break. So in this next section, uh,

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Speaker 1: there is a piece from an article that I'm going

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Speaker 1: to read which is written nineteen o six. It includes

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Speaker 1: some language that is outdated and racist at this point,

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Speaker 1: but I wanted to include it so you have a

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Speaker 1: sense of how this whole thing was sort of romanticized

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Speaker 1: and seen, and even while acknowledging that it was difficult,

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Speaker 1: it kind of is written in this way that suggests

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Speaker 1: like dashing adventure, because even if aid hunter did manage

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Speaker 1: to find orchids and survive, collecting them and then getting

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Speaker 1: to the next step was also really really hard work.

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Speaker 1: This is from a nineteen o six article which ran

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Speaker 1: in the Washington d c. Evening Star and was written

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Speaker 1: by William George Fitzgerald, who wrote, quote, for difficult as

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Speaker 1: it is to find rare orchids at all, the trouble

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Speaker 1: only begins when the hunter discovers them. He must pack

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Speaker 1: and prepare them for transportation by cooley and awesome by

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Speaker 1: long necked lama in the Andes, by raft or elephant,

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Speaker 1: and contrived to get them thousands of miles across the

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Speaker 1: ocean in such a condition that at least of them

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Speaker 1: will arrive with some vitality in them, and yeah, at

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Speaker 1: ten thousand plants may be collected on some remote Andean

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Speaker 1: peak or Papuan jungle with infinite care and consigned to Europe,

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Speaker 1: the freight alone accounting for thousands of dollars, yet on

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Speaker 1: arrival there may not be a single orchid left alive.

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Speaker 1: The plants themselves were also endangered by all the very

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Speaker 1: mania that was driving all this orchid hunting. For one,

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Speaker 1: when an orchid hunter found a new species, it was

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Speaker 1: pretty standard practice to just dig up every single one

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Speaker 1: to keep the fine to themselves. On occasions, the hunters

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Speaker 1: would also sabotage one another. Sander advised his men to

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Speaker 1: urinate on other hunters halls if the opportunity arose to

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Speaker 1: try to destroy their work. Needless to say, conservation of

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00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:48,040
Speaker 1: the ecological systems where they were hunting these orchids was

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00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:53,040
Speaker 1: not a priority at all. No Rosal in particular had

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Speaker 1: kind of a reputation for being kind of sloppy and

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Speaker 1: a little bit borish and destructive in his acting methods.

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Speaker 1: By the nine twenties, though, advancements were being made both

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Speaker 1: in cultivating orchids from seeds and by reproducing them through division.

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Speaker 1: And that slowly drove down the delirium that had propelled

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Speaker 1: all of those dangerous expeditions. Additionally, a lot of the

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Speaker 1: men who had been drawn to the adventure of orchid

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00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:24,399
Speaker 1: hunting we're dead, and the few who had survived were retired.

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Speaker 1: In nine seventeen, the Lady Slipper orchid was declared extinct

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Speaker 1: in Great Britain. The Lady Slipper, as its name suggests,

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Speaker 1: has a little pouch that looks like the delicate toe

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Speaker 1: of a slipper, and then above that pouch are normally

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Speaker 1: three pedals, with the topmost pedal usually larger than the

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Speaker 1: two um that fall to the side. Often there's a

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Speaker 1: little twist. This flower is gold and burgundy, and orchid

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00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:53,359
Speaker 1: enthusiasts just could not help themselves when it came to

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Speaker 1: cutting the flowers and digging them up, which often left

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Speaker 1: them to die in the process. In the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 1: a single remaining Lady Slipper orchid was found growing wild

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Speaker 1: in Great Britain in Yorkshire Dale's. That was the last

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Speaker 1: known wild orchid there, not the last known wild one

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Speaker 1: on earth. Just for clarity, and even though orchid delirium

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Speaker 1: had calmed down to the point of non existence. By

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Speaker 1: the time of this discovery, that single plant kicked off

381
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:25,400
Speaker 1: a refreshed obsession, in part just because of the financial

382
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Speaker 1: value of the plant. This was so intense that the

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00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:31,679
Speaker 1: plant had to be guarded by police and conservation minded

384
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Speaker 1: volunteers from plant hunters who might try to find it.

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Speaker 1: Once its existence became public knowledge, a group called the

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Speaker 1: Slipper Petium Committee, which was named after the plant's Latin

387
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:45,240
Speaker 1: name for him, to protect the plant in the immediate sense,

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Speaker 1: and then also to set out a long term plan

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Speaker 1: for its well being. They kept the exact location of

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Speaker 1: that Lady Slipper orchid a secret, and that orchid is

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Speaker 1: still alive today. In late nineteen eighties, scientists finally managed

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Speaker 1: to propagate the plant raised seedlings. Those seedlings, once they

393
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 1: reached a certain level of growth, were then planted at

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00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:09,360
Speaker 1: various other secret sites in northern England. Although a lot

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00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 1: of them did not live to maturation, the few that

396
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:15,679
Speaker 1: did survive had to be protected during the flowering season,

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00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:20,000
Speaker 1: just as that parent plant had. Eventually, a nature reserve

398
00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 1: in Lancashire was able to foster a Lady Slipper orchid

399
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: population that was hardy enough that it is now open

400
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 1: to visitors, so that location of the first one is

401
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,920
Speaker 1: still secret to most people. So there's a real problem

402
00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:37,199
Speaker 1: in the ongoing obsession with orchids. Apart from all the

403
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 1: problems that we've already been talking about of you know, yeah,

404
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:44,200
Speaker 1: in the modern era, there are still people that hunt

405
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: for orchids. Uh. If you saw the movie adaptation or

406
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: read the book it was adapted from The Orchid Thief,

407
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:53,439
Speaker 1: there are still people that trade in this, although adaptation,

408
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 1: i should say, is a very very loose adaptation of

409
00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,680
Speaker 1: that book. Yeah. So, apart from all the many problems

410
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,399
Speaker 1: we've are you talked about, the problem that's keeping botanists

411
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 1: from having the fullest range of information about orchids today

412
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: is secrecy. When plants are discovered that are believed to

413
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 1: be valuable, often they're kept totally sacred and the interest

414
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: of profit over science. Today's orchid industry is estimated to

415
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 1: be a nine billion dollar business annually, and there are,

416
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 1: as I said, still people who smuggle orchids, But that

417
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 1: too is problematic outside of any issues of morality or

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00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: financial ethics. And that's because most orchids evolved in ways

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00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 1: that require As we mentioned earlier, very specific pollinators. It's

420
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:40,840
Speaker 1: not like you could take any given orchid and just

421
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: kind of put it in with bees and let nature

422
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 1: work it out. Not all orchids would work that way,

423
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 1: so it's often difficult even for botanists to properly replicate

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00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: the needs of these plants. So collectors who are still

425
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:57,360
Speaker 1: willing to pay top dollar for one that is collected

426
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:00,640
Speaker 1: from the wild that is maybe rare and exotic, may

427
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 1: in fact doom those very plants that they value so

428
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: highly because care is so difficult that not everybody can

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00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: manage it. And it also means that things that threatened

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00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:14,120
Speaker 1: their pollinators threatened the plants to it's all tied together. Yes,

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00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 1: there are a lot of stories if you start digging about, uh,

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00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: like ecological whoopsie daisies that happened when people are trying

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00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: to collect an orchid, or there's an orchid that like

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00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: comes and goes. I read one story, and I did

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00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 1: not write it down, so I don't have the details

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00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:35,120
Speaker 1: of its location exactly correct. But a botanist had seen

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00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: this orchid and then had gone back to the place

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00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: that it was some years later to study it some more,

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00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:44,440
Speaker 1: and it wasn't there anymore. And they had found out

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00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: from a local that there was a fire, uh, and

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00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: that there were frequent fires because of some industrialization in

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00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: this swamp land. And so they got all kinds of

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00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: activism going and sort of like stopped the industrial stuff

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00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: that was causing those fires. And then it turned out

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00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 1: that that particular orchid had evolved in a way that

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00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: it needed a fire in its cycle every certain number

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00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: of years. So even when we try to intercede in

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00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 1: an ecologically sound way, sometimes it does not uh work

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00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 1: with whatever orchid is being examined or desired. Well, and

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00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: of course today you do not need to travel all

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00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:23,919
Speaker 1: over the world to get an orchid. You can buy

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00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: them at the store. You can order all kinds of

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00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:33,119
Speaker 1: them online at a for a wide variety of price points.

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00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: Some of them are still going to cost you several

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00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: thousand dollars though, Uh yeah, I mean, it's again fascinating

456
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 1: to me the range that you can get an orchid

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00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: for fifteen bucks if you're very low end, all the

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00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: way up to you know, many thousands of dollars. Also,

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00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:50,959
Speaker 1: I just as a coda, wanted to mention that, just

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00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: in case you think you are not an orchid fan

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00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: or you're not into them, or you don't cross paths

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00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:59,719
Speaker 1: with them. Next time you bite into a delicious slice

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00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: of ache or a cookie, you might want to think

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00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: of orchids, because that's where vanilla comes from. And vanilla

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00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 1: is delicious and amazing. It is those those brown flex

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00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: you see in like French and usually not French vanilla,

467
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 1: because that's that's refined in a way that you don't

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00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 1: see the brown flex but in like natural vanilla things.

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00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 1: Those little brown flex those are orchid seeds and they're delicious.

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00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 1: Do you also have some listener mail for us? I do,

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00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: And because we landed this orchid discussion on food, I

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00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: thought I would do a listener mail that was about food. Uh,

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00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 1: it is about one of our older episodes. It's from

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00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: our listener Brittany, and she says, Hi, Holly and Tracy,

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00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 1: first and foremost, I have to thank you both for

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00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 1: the hours of listening, learning, and laughing y'all have brought

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00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 1: me over the past year and a half. I discovered

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00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 1: the show early last year when my mom was in

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00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 1: the hospital recovering. I hope her mom is doing great now.

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00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,200
Speaker 1: Through the drives to and from the hospital, time spent

481
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: sitting and waiting and nights I could not sleep. Y'all

482
00:27:57,280 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 1: were my companions. I felt like I had two new friends,

483
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: share a new love of Disney and fashion with Holly,

484
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: and the homestate connection with Tracy of North Carolina. And

485
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: I'm sure I looked a little bit odd laughing to

486
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: myself on my commute and sitting alone in public, But

487
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 1: now I can't wait for my time in the car

488
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: to catch up on the old and new episodes alike.

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00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 1: I'm marking my way through the archives, and I just

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00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,120
Speaker 1: listened to your episode A Brief History of Peanut Butter,

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00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: and I found myself craving my mom's favorite peanut butter

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00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: based treat, and I wanted to share it with y'all

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00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: in case you felt like some adventurous baking. I was

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00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: raised in a household with my grandmother, a Southern cook

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00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 1: who grew up during the Depression. Thus I developed a

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00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 1: fondness for some foods my friends found pretty odd. See

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00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 1: banana and mayo sandwiches and pear salad with mayo and

498
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: parmesan cheese. A lot of mayo going on here. Even

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00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: I was thrown off when one Christmas, my mom taught

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00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: me how to make her favorite candy, Potato Candy. This

501
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: confection is made of mashed potatoes, powdered sugar, and of course,

502
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: peanut butter. I have included a link to a recipe

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00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: very similar to my mom's. Let me know if you

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00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: have the chance to make it and what you think.

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00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: I have not done so yet, but it sure is

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00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 1: on my list now because I love of making crazy things.

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00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: I love potatoes, I do too, and I like candy. Um,

508
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: not always in a sweet tooth mood, but when I

509
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: am lookout and that sounds really interesting, so I will um.

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00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: We can post the link to that recipe uh in

511
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: our show notes and we can all try making Potato

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00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 1: Kiddy if we wish. But thank you so much, Brittany.

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00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: That sounds really yummy and fun. I'm a big fan

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00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: of putting crazy stuff together on sandwiches as well. Now

515
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: I'm literally just thinking about sandwiches, so give me a minute.

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00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us, you can

517
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 1: do so at History Podcast at house to works dot com.

518
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: You can also find us on social media as missed

519
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: in History pretty much everywhere, and our website is missed

520
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 1: in History dot com and there you will find every

521
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: episode of the show that's ever existed, plus show notes

522
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 1: for any of the ones that Tracy and I have

523
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: worked on, and a whole lot more so, Come and

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00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 1: visit us at missed in history dot com. For more

525
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff

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00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: works dot com. M