Closeup of a Phalaenopsis blossom
The ancient Greeks—whose word orkhis means testicle—gave the family its name, based on the appearance of the tuberous roots of a terrestrial species. In classical mythology, Orchis, the son of a satyr and a nymph, was turned into a flower after his death. In hisMateria Medica, the first century A.D. Greek physician Dioscorides hypothesized that orchids influenced sexuality. Ever since, people have associated the plant with virility, fertility, sex determination, and other aspects of reproduction, inspired perhaps by the exotic appearance, fragrance, and frankly erotic aspect of its flower’s sexual parts. The English Victorian John Ruskin called the flowers “prurient apparitions.”
