Yesterday, I was at my neighbors’ house as their daughter celebrated her 12th birthday and everyone present was all smiles when she said he wants an orchid plant as a gift. This made the parents really proud as they were very experience orchid growers. Like parents like daughter. But before you start going into this pastime, you first need to get acquainted with the orchid world. You need to master the fundamental of orchid growing and one of those is knowing the various
orchid types.Wikipedia and other online resources would tell us that there are over 125,000 orchid varieties. But setting aside all those herculean facts, what you really need to know is that all these thousands and thousands of orchid species fall into two main categories: Terrestrial and Epiphytes. Cymbidium and calopogon are the well known examples of terrestrials and bulbophyllums and dendrobiums are famous epiphytes. Epiphytes and terrestrial orchids share certain similarities and differences as well. This article will help us understand these two orchid types in further detail.
Terrestrial Orchids
This orchid type has about 40 general species and a thousand more hybrid ones. Terrestrial orchids are native to the eastern part of the world. This orchid type only grows on the ground. Terrestrial orchids are very flexible that they adapt to almost any environment. Terrestrials can survive in rain forest and on trees and even on rocks! What you would like about terrestrials is that without fail, they produce beautiful flowers.
Epiphytes
The word epiphyte does not only refer to orchids but to other plants that has a root system that is not on ground as well. Probably the best known epiphyte orchid is the “denrobium orchid”. This
orchid types is also found in the Southeast Asia region, Australia and Polynesia. Tropical locations are best for epiphytes. Warmth and humidity are the two things needed by an epiphyte plant to survive along with the right level of sunlight.
There you go. Knowing the two general orchid types will aid any hopeful orchid grower in successfully growing their orchid plant.
