The New York Sun, April 15th, 2004

URBAN JUNGLE:

The New York International Orchid Show Offers a Look At Some Of the World's Most Beautiful, Mysterious, and Outlandish Flowers

The relationship between orchids and their pollinators are so intricately linked that they can't be understood independently. The seductive wood orchid quivers for motion-sensitive nocturnal creatures. The devious dragon orchid of Australia mimics the shape and scent of a female thynnid wasp so that the male wasp, attempting to mate, pollinates it.

At the New York International Orchid Show at Rockefeller Center, which opened yesterday and continues through Sunday, champion orchids are on display, along with another set of creatures whose lives are passionately intertwined with them — orchid breeders. More than 60 exhibitors from around the world are showing their prize flowers, and more than 50,000 of the plants are for sale.

One breeder, Glen Decker, has been creating his own varieties of Lady's Slipper Orchids for 27 years. "I went into orchids because they were beautiful and unique," he said. "They were also mysterious, because back then, they were only for the rich."

With a toothpick, pollen, and a lot of patience, breeders are able to take the color of one flower and combine it with the size of another that they are partial to. They are constantly looking to produce plants that flower more easily and that have more blooms that last longer. At the show, their visions are on view; explosions of magenta blossoms, butter-yellow flowers with streaks of bright red, snow-white petals with magenta speckles, and creamy peach blooms with hotpink stripes.

The plants are awarded prizes based on their shape, the flatness of their petals, and their proportions. Judge Kathy Creger said, "We're also looking for the 'wow' factor — that something that just surprises you."
But for all the beautiful orchids, there are also the strange and exotic.

Mr. Decker pointed out a Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis, a large plant with huge leaves drooping to the floor. Its blooms were hairy, had a muddy red color, and curved like claws.

"This plant smells like hot, dirty garbage," he said. "This is what is exciting to me. Something really different."

Orchid shows in America usually don't have competitions for fragrance, but this one does, sponsored by the Japanese fragrance company Shiseido. While it can take seven years of training to become an orchid judge, the fragrance judges are a mixed group of elite orchid specialists and perfumers. Orchid scents are judged in four categories: intensity and diffusiveness, elegance, gorgeousness, and liveliness and freshness.

"What on earth does gorgeousness smell like?" asked one of the fragrance judges, Harry Zelenko, who is the author of "Orchids: The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Oncidium." "This is totally subjective."

Vincent Schaller, from the Swiss essential oil supplier Firmenich, which helps create perfume lines for clients such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, believed elegance to be the most important category. He pointed out his favorite."This one smells like a forest I'd like to walk through," he said. "It also smells like my ex-girlfriend," he added.

These flowers, such as Jewel Orchids, bred more for their leaves than flowers, or the diminutive Sharry Baby blossoms that smell like chocolate, are still mysterious, but they are no longer for just the rich. Most of the orchid plants for sale are priced between $15 and $65. These are flowers that have honed their power of attraction over thousands of years, and their seduction doesn't just work on hummingbirds and bees.