Bitten by the Orchid Bug in Bangkok by Mark Eveleigh
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Piyakaset Suksathan had already made many explorations of the mountains of Chiang Mai province when he set out one morning on a trek to the summit of Doi Chiang Dao.
As a young biologist he was studying the taxonomy and ecology of ferns on Thailand's highest limestone peak. He would often spend as much as ten days camping and exploring in the mountains but that particular dank, rainy-season morning was to be memorable for totally unexpected reasons.
“I was approaching the summit when I noticed a cluster of orchids among the rocks. At first they seemed familiar but the leaves bore a different sort of mottling and this high-altitude habitat was especially unusual.”
A Surprising Discovery
Piyakaset Suksathan had discovered not only a new species of orchid, but also an entirely unknown genus. The discovery caused much discussion among orchid enthusiasts and experts and set a surprising chain of events in motion. Plans for a cable-car that would allow public access to Doi Chiang Dao were shelved for fear that the sensitive habitat would be overrun and a ranger patrol was arranged to guard against collectors.
“The chances of a biologist discovering a new species of orchids is always extremely slim,” explained Suksathan’s boss, Dr Pramook Benyasut, director of the Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden, near Chiang Mai. “In Thailand it is even more unlikely. Not only are we losing our natural habitat at a frightening rate because of a booming population but we also have a distinct lack of biologists. Rare orchids and even rarer botanists!”
Thailand is unique in the region in that it has never been colonised by any European power. Throughout the colonial period the Siamese kings walked a delicate tightrope to play the might of the French off against the British and the Dutch. The result is a country that boasts an unusual wealth of purely homegrown cultural riches…but Thailand has also suffered from a lack of input as far as the sciences of the western world were concerned.
“The Burmese and the Malays benefited from the attention of British scientists; the Laotians, Viets and Khmers had French professors and the Indonesians had the Dutch,” Dr Benyasut points out. “But we were on our own and it is only recently that young Thais have begun to document the natural riches of our country.”
Thailand's Wealth of Orchids
Even so, it is already known that Thailand is almost unequalled in its wealth of orchids. More than 1,200 species of orchids are found in the wild here and it is certain that there are more waiting to be discovered. As a family these plants are incredibly versatile and can be found in most types of habitats on every continent apart from Antarctica. Orchids that grow on rocks are known as lithophytes, those that grow on trees are epiphytes and there are terrestrials, which grow on the ground.
One of the things that make orchids truly unique is that it is not unknown for an orchid to exist only on a specific tree or to be found on a single mountaintop where it is pollinated by a certain species of insect that might never occur in a similar habitat elsewhere.
They are one of the world’s largest plant families with about 30,000 naturally occurring species. They range from the microscopic Venezuelan Platystele ornate (you could balance an entire bouquet on the head of a pin) to Borneo’s immense Grammatophyllum speciosum, which can weigh half a ton and would totally fill the average suburban garden. This monster epiphyte often grows high in the forest canopy and several intrepid collectors have met an untimely death while dislodging it from its precarious resting place.
The world of orchid addicts, bona-fide collectors, explorer-smugglers, conservationists and underworld dealers is full of all the intrigue, mystery and double-dealing of a classic cloak-and-dagger spy thriller. In his fascinatingly well-researched book Orchid Fever, Eric Hansen wrote of tattooed Hell’s Angel orchid cultivators, shadowy Armenian orchid-hunters, teenage prodigies (slowly poisoning themselves and their families with the same chemicals that enrich their precious flowers), and infatuated orchid lovers who will pay thousands of dollars and suffer weeks of hardship simply to see a rare bloom in its wild habitat. It seems that – more even than the European tulip infatuation of the 1700s – orchids inspire a sort of craziness that is unknown in any other field of botany.
A History of Orchid Collecting
But this is far from a modern fad. In 2800BC the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung wrote about the medicinal uses of orchids and around 500BC the warrior-philosopher Confucius described the orchid as ‘the king of fragrant plants.’
Neither are we talking about a small and marginal group of fanatics. The American Orchid Society alone has about 30,000 members and it is estimated that there are as many as 5 million orchid collectors worldwide. Many have converted their gardens, basements and even their own sitting rooms into steamy, sweltering jungle habitats where their beloved plants can feel perfectly at home. To many, orchids are simply beautiful flowers.
To others there is a macabre appeal in their parasitic habits. Many find them fascinating for their sheer diversity or for their loyalty only to very select habitats (like the ‘tropical lady’s slipper’ that grows only on a single remote mountain in Borneo). Or for their fidelity to a single type of pollinating insect (like the ‘Star of Bethlehem’ orchid from Madagascar that can be pollinated only by a single moth with a 30cm tongue). To others, their swellings, their pouting folds and their frequently pungent scents suggest a very blatant sexuality.
The young biologist Suksathan was well aware of what Eric Hansen called the ‘love, lust and lunacy’ of the orchid world. Although certain details were necessary for the naming and first scientific description of the new genus Sirindhornia (named after Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of the Thai royal family), Suksathan kept the exact location of his discovery a closely guarded secret.
“I told him I didn’t even want to know where it was,” said the director of the botanic garden. “The less people who know, the safer those orchids will be.”
Orchids: Multi-Million Dollar Industry
Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden with its acres of carefully tended gardens and greenhouses (and a luxurious and typically verdant hotel) has exclusive permits to collect orchids from the wild for conservation and research. It was brutally apparent to the biologists that the publication of this new species could provoke a sort of destructive greed among less scrupulous collectors that would be unthinkable in any other field of natural history.
The worldwide retail business in orchids was recently estimated to be worth about US$9 billion per year and there were individual dealers in the United States who were turning over $15 million each in annual wholesale trade. In 2000 Thailand alone was exporting more than US$250 million worth of orchids.
A single rare plant can be worth thousands of dollars to some wild orchid collectors and albino variations might sell for far more. In 2005 a single orchid plant was sold in China for US$202,000.
Illegal Trading
With profits like that it is no surprise that the dark side of the orchid trade is never far away. The CITES organisation (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) is working to do what it can to protect orchids but all too often the primary effect in the naming of an Appendix 1 (the most protected) species simply leads to an increase in demand. As a scientist at the Botanic Gardens explained: “CITES just doesn’t work for orchids,” he said. “They list a plant as appendix 1 and the first thing you know is that prices and demand go through the roof.
There’s a German based in Chiang Mai who sends collectors out to Madagascar, South Africa, Philippines, Indonesia. He imports the plants and then stores them in his greenhouses here. You see, you have to make them ‘forget the jungle’: you keep them until they lose the mottling on the leaves, the marks of the collector’s knife or any signs whatsoever that they once grew wild. Then he can export them hidden in batches of legal Thai orchids. He has very influential clients who he can hide behind. He is the biggest operator here but he’s not alone…I think it would be no exaggeration to say that Chiang Mai has become the centre for illegal orchid trade worldwide.”
The scientist (he asked not to be named for fear of reprisals) directed me to an illegal orchid farm on a quiet backcountry road in Mae Rim province. I had a story prepared - and was ready to pose as a buyer for an eccentric uncle - but in the end my unexpected arrival did not seem to provoke any suspicion and I was able to wander through a 'hanging garden' of thousands of orchids. All were illegally collected by gatherers in the jungle and they were stored in very sorry conditions. It was clear that the majority would die even before they were even seen by a buyer.
The smuggler’s den seemed a million miles from the well-tended gardens of Suanbua Maesa Orchid Farm, one of Thailand’s largest private orchid farms. Plants here are sold with an official CITES permit and a ‘health certificate’ and many are cultivated by micro-propagation. Seeds are planted in a specially prepared jelly in the bottom of a bottle. The jelly is made from such things as coconut, banana, sugar, peanut and potato but over the years the orchidologists here have developed a different recipe for each type of orchid.
Hybrid Orchids
Beside micro-propagation the main business here is in sales of hybrid orchids. Hybriding is a whole branch of orchidology in its own right and every year Suanbua Maesa is creating an entire catalogue of brand-new, never-before-seen flowers.
The trick is to pick a particularly good plant and look for the perfect flower. Then with a simple probe (like a toothpick) the orchid grower can simulate the action of a nectar-hunting insect and collect the pollen sacks. He carries them carefully to a completely different plant where he pollinates another perfect flower…and the result could be a hybrid that is absolutely unique in the world. Hybrid cultivators work to combine plants with wonderful scents with those with particularly delightful blooms or for a combination of colours or for variety in shapes of the petals.
The possibilities are endless because the hybrid can then in turn be cross-pollinated either with original ‘natural’ orchids or with other hybrids.
Beautiful new flowers are being ‘invented’ in this way all the time by orchid growers all over the world. But, of course, the experiment is not always a success and, occasionally, spectacularly ugly mutants are also created. There are even aficionados dedicated to the collection of these ‘monsters’ but in general they have the briefest moments of existence in the botanical world...and then disappear, never to be seen again.
The pollinated flower dries and changes into a seedpod. Then in the natural world it bursts and thousands of seeds drift away on the jungle breeze. The chances of survival are slim but with luck one or two seeds might settle to take root in a patch of moist moss or a crack on a sunlit branch. At Suanbua Maesa the thousands of seeds are collected manually and a thousand healthy plants might be cultivated under laboratory conditions from a single endangered bloom.
It is a highly developed scientific discipline but - unlike other forms of extinction that are impoverishing our planet - orchid conservation could be a relatively simple affair. There are those who say that if CITES gave reputable orchid dealers more freedom to collect and cultivate endangered plants, the rampant extinction of orchids all over the world would be a thing of the past.
For more on the crazy world of orchidology read: Orchid Fever, a horticultural tale of love, lust, and lunacy, by Eric Hansen (Vintage Books, 2000).
A Brief Guide to Bangkok
Best eat in Bangkok:
At first glance the Old Phra Athit Pier seems to be an old Bangkok institution that must have been serving good food in a wonderful riverbank location since time immemorial. In reality it’s a new place, constructed using antique materials from elsewhere. It’s already building a great reputation though and should be around for some time to come!
Best city escape:
Kanchanaburi (two hours from Bangkok by air-conditioned bus) is best known as the location of the famous ‘Bridge on the River Kwai.’ The town is well worth a visit as a wonderfully relaxing antidote to the clamour and bustle of the capital. You can spend a couple of relaxing days on a houseboat on the river or, if you’re feeling more adventurous, mount an expedition along the route of the Death Railway through the spectacular countryside towards the Myanmar border.
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