Orchids

Over the past few years I have visited so many orchid shows around the UK and taken dozens, if not hundreds of pictures. All of which have been taken using  my mobile phone.

Finally, I have begun to put some of these together, and hope that they will help to highlight some of the beautiful orchids that are still being grown here, even after species have become much harder to source post-Brexit.

This section is devoted to the orchid shows I visited last year (2024) which perhaps the relevant societies will find interesting and others might enjoy browsing

The orchid family  has, possibly, the greatest floral diversity of any plant group, with 27,000+ species (and counting) and over 100,000 registered hybrids (a very conservative estimate).  Their flowers exhibit an amazing variety of form, which illustrates their structural and intimate links with their pollinators.  They all have the same basic floral layout, but in many it has been highly adapted to the needs of their pollinator, added to which they are pollinator specific. Which means that if they lose their pollinator, it is unlikely that they can be pollinated by another species.

A few modern hybrids are shown below -