AI Summary
5 min readThe wild orchid mystery
At a monthly orchid judging event near Washington, D.C., a dozen judges pass around a phalaenopsis orchid, evaluating it on color, size, texture, and form. "Asymmetry is a killer in flowers," says Rob Griesbach, an accredited judge with the American Orchid Society. He compares the process to a dog show: the winners get bred for their superior traits, and these are the flowers that end up in grocery stores. But Griesbach makes a crucial distinction between these cultivated plants and their wild cousins. "Like dogs and wolves, they're related, but still very different," he says. "A Chihuahua's not very close to the wolf."
The orchid wolf in the woods
The "wolves" of the orchid world are native species like the small whorled pogonia, one of over 200 orchids native to North America. It grows from Georgia to Maine but is becoming rarer—extinct in Maryland and D.C., and declining elsewhere. Smithsonian senior botanist Dennis Whigham has been studying a secret population of these orchids in a Virginia forest for 15 years. The small whorled pogonia doesn't look like a grocery store orchid. It resembles a little green star-shaped umbrella, and when it blooms for just ten days a year, it produces a white flower that Whigham describes as "a dragon with a tutu."
Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.
Read Full Summary →Free • No credit card required
Never miss an episode of Unexplainable
Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
What you'll learn
- 1 The Wild Orchid Mystery — Navigation Outline
- 2 (01:29) **Introduction: The Mystery of Orchids** - Bird Pinkerton introduces a Side Door episode about a hidden mystery in plain sight: orchids are delicate barometers of ecosystem health with a secret relationship to the underground world.
- 3 (02:19) **Orchid Beauty Pageant** - Host Lizzie Peabody eavesdrops on the National Orchid Society's DC area orchid judging, where enthusiasts evaluate flowers like show dogs.
- 4 (05:54) **The Orchid Wolves: Small Whorled Pogonia** - The episode shifts to wild orchids, specifically the small whorled pogonia, a secretive flower Smithsonian ecologists have been trying to re-establish for 15 years.
- 5 (07:30) **Into the Secret Forest** - Dennis Whigham, senior botanist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, leads Lizzie to a hidden grove of small whorled pogonias in Virginia.
- 6 (09:09) **What a Wild Orchid Looks Like** - The small whorled pogonia doesn't resemble grocery-store orchids at all—it looks like a tiny green star-shaped umbrella with a white flower like "a little dragon's mouth with mustaches."
- 7 (11:28) **The Fungus Connection** - Orchids can't grow without a fungal partner; their dust-like seeds lack enough food to germinate on their own.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
More than just beautiful flowers, wild orchids have been confounding scientists for years. Our friends at Sidedoor — a podcast from the Smithsonian — set out to find a rare specimen for themselves.
Guest: Lizzie Peabody, host of Sidedoor
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts
For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable
And please email us! [email protected]
We read every email.
Support Unexplainable (and get ad-free episodes) by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
More from this podcast
Unexplainable →