subject: Fragrant Orchids: Tantalizing Tidbits to Tease and Teach [print this page] Orchid Fragrance = Pollination Orchid Fragrance = Pollination
Why are orchids, or any other flowers, fragrant? It's surely not to please people, although sometimes the first hint that an orchid is about to bloom is its fragrance wafting across the room.
Orchids are fragrant because they need to attract pollinators in order to reproduce. So, really it's a matter of survival! Most orchids are dependent on a specific pollinator to get the job done. This means that fragrant orchids smell the way they smell because it needs to attract whatever creature it is that pollinates them.
Since orchids come from every part of the world (except those that are covered in ice or are desert regions), there are many, many potential orchid pollinators. Usually they're insects. The orchids that are native to each different world habitat have a fragrance that attracts pollinators that also live in that habitat.
As you gather more orchid information, you'll find that the bright colors and the patterns on orchid blooms are also meant to attract pollinators. Even the shapes of many orchids are meant to mimic the shapes of insects, another orchid technique to attract some attention from potential pollinators!
Night or day
It's interesting to note, that orchids are normally fragrant either during the day or during the night, but usually not both times. Sometimes their fragrance wanes during the times of the day or night that pollinators are not active.
For example, green and white orchids are usually pollinated by insects that fly at night. So, come dusk, green and white orchids dispense their sweet perfume into the evening air to lure night flying insects towards them in order to achieve pollination. These types of orchids include Brassavola nodosa (the Lady of the Night orchid) and Rhyncholaelia digbyana.
Most of the Cattleya species are fragrant in the daytime because that's when their pollinating insects are most active.
Insects smell the fragrant orchids before they see them. Bees are attracted to sweet and spicy fragrances. Flies are attracted to fragrances that are not quite so sweet garbage, decay, animal droppings, and other good things like that.
Most orchids have a floral fragrance, but others smell like raspberry, licorice, vanilla, coconut, lilacs and citrus.
Orchids to buy
Different fragrances appeal to different people - hence the multitude of colognes and perfumes on the market today. Different intensities of fragrance are also attractive to different people.
If you plan on buying a fragrant orchid, be very sure that the fragrance and intensity of fragrance is appealing to you. Even the most gorgeous blooms lose some allure if they carry a fragrance that is unappealing or too heady for the area in which orchids are kept.
Orchid hybridists, using all sorts of orchid information, are attempting to hybridize orchids with amazing scents all the time. This is not always as easy as it sounds. You cannot simply pollinate one fragrant orchid with another and expect to get a combination of scents, the same intensity of scent, or even any scent at all.
Orchid fragrance is still somewhat of a mystery to man. And the mystery of the orchid is one of the aspects of its "personality" that makes it so attractive to mankind.
Fragrant Orchids: Tantalizing Tidbits to Tease and Teach
