The orchids in my garden are about as free range as you can get. Other than providing them with habitat, watering and feeding them, I leave them alone. So many people tell me to trim dead parts off, to keep the leaves clean, to cut off old sheaths. Is this what happens in nature?
Yesterday I had a look at the big pendulous cane of my Dendrobium anosum. All the leaves except for two or three at the top had fallen off. Here and there poking out of the surface were little nubs that will soon become flowers.
Of course these flowers interest me. Especially because they’re supposed to have a nice aroma, something I’ve been looking forward to since I got this baby in July. But more interesting than the up and coming buds was the paper sheath covering them.
The sheath seems to be characteristic of Dendrobiums. I have it on all them in my garden, even the rescues that shot up and sang once I added water. This papery layer is so interesting. A close look tells me why.
As I stared at the surface of the dried up sheath I noticed a whole lot of decorative little dots. They don’t seem to be in any kind of pattern but there are a lot of them. It occurred to me. These are the scars of former lenticels.
I don’t want to get too technical here but lenticels are tiny pores on the surface of photosynthetic parts of the plant. They allow for gas exchange (carbon dioxide in, oxygen and water vapor out) on all the green parts of the plant except the leaves. Leaves have their own pores that do gas exchange. They are called stomata.
But back to the lenticels on the dry sheath of my Dendrobium cane. The cane is a kind of stem, so it makes sense that it would do photosynthesis. Here though th outer epidermis of the stem has loosened and died during growth. It appears to me that this is part of a programmed sequence of events that include elongation and stretching, thickening of the stem, and the development of an alternative outer layer that protects the cane. It means that the “dead” part of this plant, the dried up outer sheath, is part of an intentional, genetically controlled growth process.
The sheath is elegant not just in the way it looks, but in the process it represents. To me, this process and its physical product-the orchid body, are truly a thing of beauty.
Don’t know how to put it any other way. But if you’re gonna understand the orchids in your garden you have to understand all their workings, not just the beautiful flowers they produce.
Yesterday I had a look at the big pendulous cane of my Dendrobium anosum. All the leaves except for two or three at the top had fallen off. Here and there poking out of the surface were little nubs that will soon become flowers.
Of course these flowers interest me. Especially because they’re supposed to have a nice aroma, something I’ve been looking forward to since I got this baby in July. But more interesting than the up and coming buds was the paper sheath covering them.
The sheath seems to be characteristic of Dendrobiums. I have it on all them in my garden, even the rescues that shot up and sang once I added water. This papery layer is so interesting. A close look tells me why.
As I stared at the surface of the dried up sheath I noticed a whole lot of decorative little dots. They don’t seem to be in any kind of pattern but there are a lot of them. It occurred to me. These are the scars of former lenticels.
I don’t want to get too technical here but lenticels are tiny pores on the surface of photosynthetic parts of the plant. They allow for gas exchange (carbon dioxide in, oxygen and water vapor out) on all the green parts of the plant except the leaves. Leaves have their own pores that do gas exchange. They are called stomata.
But back to the lenticels on the dry sheath of my Dendrobium cane. The cane is a kind of stem, so it makes sense that it would do photosynthesis. Here though th outer epidermis of the stem has loosened and died during growth. It appears to me that this is part of a programmed sequence of events that include elongation and stretching, thickening of the stem, and the development of an alternative outer layer that protects the cane. It means that the “dead” part of this plant, the dried up outer sheath, is part of an intentional, genetically controlled growth process.
The sheath is elegant not just in the way it looks, but in the process it represents. To me, this process and its physical product-the orchid body, are truly a thing of beauty.
Don’t know how to put it any other way. But if you’re gonna understand the orchids in your garden you have to understand all their workings, not just the beautiful flowers they produce.
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