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March 2004
MARCH MEETING March
8, 2004 Mexican Orchid Species This month,
Connie Boyd will discuss the Mexican orchid species and their natural
habitat. Ms. Boyd started in the orchid business in 1982 with her first
orchid nursery in Fortin de las Flores, Veracruz, Mexico. In 1985, she
established a laboratory specializing in Mexican orchid species and some
hybrids. She was a judge and vendor at the Japan Grand Prix representing
Mexico in 1996 and 1997. She moved her nursery to San Diego in 1997. Beginner's program (starts at 6:30 p.m.): Bring in your plants for a diagnosis of general issues and Jerry Hoffmeister will do his best to help. Plant Table: Bring your blooming orchids to show. Sales Table: Members may bring up to 10 plants to sell. Raffle: Win a new orchid for your collection. COMING UP April: Bill Bergstrom of Bergstrom Orchids will be doing a talk about his collecting trip in Peru. May: Harry from Andy’s Orchids will talk on mounting and growing mounted orchids. June: Potluck and reports from scholarship winners July: Open August: Picnic September:
Bill Goldner of Woodstream Orchids will speak to us, program TBD. Got a suggestion for a speaker or program? Contact Jerry Hoffmeister at at jerry@hoffmeisters.com or 206-932-9912.
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Notice the difference in these two words. One is passive, one is active. You can attend something without participating. Which are you doing? You can make a difference by getting involved in club activities. Take the risk and become a board member. Say you are interested, but don’t think you are ready for say one of the vice president jobs, volunteer to be a trustee. All you have to do is come to six board meetings a year where you can get a feel for the working of the board before moving on to other positions. That is how I started out. I hear all these rumors about going back to the Flower and Garden Show with the presence we use to have. What I question is who is going to do the work? At our fall show we couldn’t get enough people to volunteer to man all of our positions. We can’t get anyone to take on critical board positions to keep the club running. My term ends in three months who is going to step in and run our meetings? You? Let’s
turn attendance into participation. See you at the next meeting, Jamie
Notman ORCHIDS: PLANTS WITH SMARTS By Susan Orlean The orchid family could have died out like dinosaurs if insects had chosen to feed on simpler plants and not on orchids. The orchids wouldn’t have been pollinated, and without pollination they would never have grown seeds, while self-pollinating simple plants growing nearby would have seeded themselves constantly and spread like mad and taken up more and more space and light and water, and eventually orchids would have been pushed to the margins of evolution and disappeared. Instead, orchids have multiplied and diversified and become the largest flowering plant family on Earth because each orchid species has made itself irresistible. Many species look so much like their favorite insects that the insect mistakes them for kin, and when it lands on the flower to visit, pollen sticks to its body. When the insect repeats the mistake on another orchid, pollen from the first flower gets deposited on the stigma of the second—in other words, the orchid gets fertilized because it is smarter than the bug.
Another orchid species imitates the shape of something that a pollinating insect likes to kill. Botanists call this pseudoantagonism. The insect sees its enemy and attacks it—that is, attacks the orchid—and in the process of this pointless fight the insect gets dusted with orchid pollen and spreads the pollen when it repeats the mistake. Other species look like the mate of their pollinator, so the bug tries to mate with one orchid and then another—pseudocopulation—and spreads pollen from flower to flower each hopeless time. Lady’s slipper orchids have a special hinged lip that traps bees and forces them to pass through sticky threads of pollen as they struggle to escape through the back of the plant. Some orchids have straight-ahead good looks but have deceptive and seductive odors. There are orchids that smell like rotting meat, which some insects happen to like. Another orchid smells like chocolate. Another smells like angel food cake. Several mimic the scent of other flowers that are more popular with insects than they are. Some release perfume only at night to attract nocturnal moths. No one knows whether orchids evolved to complement insects or whether the orchids evolved first, or whether somehow these two lifeforms evolved simultaneously, which might explain how two totally different living things came to depend on each other. The harmony between an orchid and its pollinator is so perfect that it is kind of eerie. Darwin was very interested in how orchids released pollen. He experimented by poking them with needles, camel-hair brushes, bristles, pencils and his fingers. He discovered that parts were so sensitive that they released pollen upon the slightest touch, but that “moderate degrees of violence” on the less sensitive parts had no effect, which he concluded meant that the orchid wouldn’t release pollen haphazardly—it was smart enough to save it for only the most favorable encounters with bugs. He wrote: “Orchids appeared to have been modeled in the wildest caprice, but this is no doubt due to our ignorance of their requirements and conditions of life. Why do orchids have so many perfect contrivances for their fertilization? I am sure that many other plants offer analogous adaptations of high perfection; but it seems that they are really more numerous and perfect with the Orchideae than with most other plants.” The schemes that orchids use to attract a pollinator are elegant but low percentage. Botanists recently studied 1,000 wild orchids for 15 years, and during that time only 23 plants were pollinated. The odds are bad, but orchids compensate. If they are ever fertilized, they will grow a seed pod that is supercharged. Most other species of flowers produce only 20 or so seeds at a time, while orchid pods may be filled with millions and millions of tiny dust-sized seeds. One pod has enough seeds to supply the world’s prom corsages for the rest of eternity. Some species of orchids grow in the ground and others don’t live in soil at all. The ones that don’t grow in soil are called epiphytes, and they live their lives attached to a tree branch or a rock. Epiphytic orchid seeds settle in a comfortable spot, sprout, grow, dangle their roots in the air, and live a lazy life absorbing rainwater and decayed leaves and light. They aren’t parasites—they give nothing to the tree and take nothing from it except a good place to sit. Most epiphytes evolved in tropical jungles, where there are so many living things competing for room on the jungle floor that most species lose the fight and die out. Orchids thrived in the jungle because they developed the ability to live on air rather than soil and positioned themselves where they were sure to get light and water—high above the rest of the plants, on the branches of trees. They thrived because they took themselves out of competition. If all of this makes orchids seem smart…well, they do seem smart. There is something clever and unplant-like about their determination to survive and their knack for useful deception and their genius for seducing human beings for hundreds and hundreds of years. SHOW NEWS - MARCH 2004 The Spring Sale is coming soon. I want to apologize for the date mix-up on the flyers and invite you to attend and volunteer for our sale at Sky Nursery on March 20th and 21st. We need help on both days with cashiering, membership information, and potting services. The NWOS will supply pots and medium for repotting orchids, which we will sell to our guests at $1.00 per inch of pot size. Five vendors have confirmed so far, and there will be lots of room for our own members to sell plants. Do you want to sell plants at the sale? We will have a much larger area this time. In the past we have asked members to limit the flats of plants to one per person at a time. With so much space we are going to put out as many flats as needed to fill the area. You will still need to fill in a form as a vendor. These forms are available at the next meeting, and at the sale. You must be a current member and offer to volunteer for one shift to sell plants. As always, please prep your plants with two tags, one with the plant information and the other with your name and the selling price and “NWOS”. It is helpful to also label the pot with the selling price to avoid tag switching. The NWOS will add 8.9% sales tax and take a 20% commission on all sales. This sale is limited to orchid plants only. No potting materials or fertilizers are allowed for sale. The Show
Committee is meeting again to prepare for the next big Fall Orchid Show
& Sale. This year we will use the same room as before at the Seattle
Center. The dates for the show are November 13th & 14th. Subcommittees
are forming to handle the jobs needed for the show. If you would like
to join the Show Committee or a subcommittee, please contact Robin Kemph.
The smaller committees will be working on the display, the judging and
awards, membership booth ideas, set-up, advertising, and volunteers. The
NWOS runs all of the business of the club with funds raised at our orchid
sales, and it takes a lot of volunteers to pull it off. Last year, we
had a very poor volunteer turnout and had to change some great plans to
accommodate the loss. We would like you to become involved, even if slightly,
so we can have fun speakers and better events for our members. If you
have a good idea to help make the shows better, please let us know. We
want to have a fantastic show this year, and more people will do it. Thanks! Robin
Kemph, Show Committee Chair TIMBER PRESS BOOK SALE It has been many years since we have had a Timber Press Book Sale. It is a great deal and a wonderful way for to grow your orchid book collection! We have calculated we can sell close to 80 books. The discount on the published book price will be 40%. The club will charge $1.00 per book handling charge to defray costs. Choose your titles and bring your list and your money (check or cash only) to the March 8 meeting. Books will be delivered at the April 12 meeting. If you are unable to attend the March meeting and want to order books, please call Chris Peterson at 206-525-2217. Deadline for all orders is March 8. Call in your order BEFORE the meeting if you won’t be there. You can check out the Timber Press catalog online at www.timberpress.com. NOMINEES NEEDED FOR NWOS BOARD The Society is seeking candidates for several offices plus four trustee positions. Please volunteer to serve the society (or nominate someone who would be willing to serve). Trustees serve two years; officers are elected annually. Here are the job descriptions: President: The president presides at all meetings of the Society and of the Board of Trustees, sees that bylaws are followed, and in general supervises the affairs of the society. First Vice President: This officer presides at meetings when the president is absent and coordinates the educational activities of the Society (i.e., the beginner’s program and lines up speakers for the monthly meetings). Secretary: The secretary takes minutes of all Board meetings, maintains the membership records, and deposits dues. Treasurer: The treasurer deposits receipts, pays bills, and maintains the Society’s financial records with Quick Books Pro on a laptop computer owned by the Society. In a typical month, the treasurer writes six to eight checks to members who’ve sold plants at the plant table. Work is considerably increased after the Society’s shows and sales and quarterly when taxes are due (up to 20 hours may be needed just to do the taxes). The ideal candidate will have had experience with computerized bookkeeping systems. Chris Peterson, the current treasurer, is willing to train someone to take over the position. Trustee: The Board of Trustees meets six times a year (every two months, usually the first Tuesdays of September, November, January, March and May plus an organizational meeting in June or July). Board meetings usually last about two hours. Trustees serve for two years. To be considered as a candidate or to nominate someone else, please contact Kathy Murray, nominating committee chair, at K-M_Murray@prodigy.net or 425-257-0583 or talk to Kathy at the February meeting. Nominating Committee Volunteers Needed A few good
men and women are needed to find candidates for the Society’s Board
of Trustees and for officer positions. Please volunteer by contacting
Kathy Murray at 425-257-0583 or K-M_Murray@prodigy.net. IMPORTANT DATES MARCH 6
& 7, 2004 MARCH 20-21,
2004
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