104
Today is National Orchid Day, celebrating one of the world’s most diverse and fascinating flower families – which makes it the perfect excuse for a few fun orchid facts.
• Orchids are one of the world’s largest plant families, with more than 25,000 natural species and over 100,000 hybrids.
• They grow on every continent except Antarctica.
• Some orchid blooms can last for months.
• Vanilla comes from an orchid: the vanilla planifolia.
• Some orchids mimic insects to trick pollinators.
• The world’s smallest orchids can have flowers just a few millimeters wide.
• In Victorian England, rare orchids sparked a collecting craze called “orchidelirium.”