Orchids And Other Flora Tropical America (1949)

foreign [Music] the Orchid is how old is The Delectable mango you don't know very well let us proceed with these matters but not forgetting the orchids foreign we shall not allow ourselves to be distracted even by fabulously beautiful butterflies [Music] and as for the reptiles let them preserve their supercilious calm till we get around to them on to the flowers the Victoria Regio water lily is native only to Tropical America but is often cultivated elsewhere it's claimed to our admiration lies not only in its beautiful flowers but also in its extraordinary leaves when full grown one of these leaves will support the weight of a person well of a small person anyway [Music] The Cannonball tree produces an impressive round heavy Pond which contains one of Nature's little jokes the meat has an Exquisite pink color and an odor that is simply incredibly terrible it's 100 percent inedible [Music] the strelitzia or bird of paradise flower is South African in origin but thoroughly South American by adoption this so-called wild banana is notable for its lack of bananas or indeed of any conspicuous fruit but the odd showy flower is extraordinary it holds a lot of water and if it has plenty of that it will last a month even if cut [Music] the cacao is native to South and Central America the Pod yields from 25 to 60 beans which when the white acid pulp is removed are dried and ground and become what we know as cocoa cacao boasts a resounding first name too theobroma theobroma cacao more than one Street in South America is an Avenue of the acacias or Street of the flamboyance because it's a light with the beauty of these blooms another name for the tree is the Royal Poinciana Madagascar was its native home but it has spread to all tropical Americans it loses its leaves for only two or three weeks and with the coming of the new leaves the blooms appear in glorious profusion the trees attain a height of as much as 40 feet Tropic says the apple is in North America is shaken off the tree while the fruit is still green if allowed to ripen on the tree it's likely to fall with uncomfortable impact on somebody's head it is noteworthy for its anti-2 for authorities believe it was in cultivation in the Malay State's fully four thousand years ago ask a South American what is the most delicious of all possible fruits and he'll answer the mango among the immigrants who have done well for themselves in the new world is coffee we rightly think of tropical America as triumphantly first in coffee production but the plant itself is from the old world some of these berries are green others already right they contain as you need hardly be told the beam to which a large share of the human race pays daily homage the precious being without which real Felicity in this world would be unattainable the lovely Blossom usually lasts only one day [Music] now for the Orchid the queen of flowers and one of Nature's loveliest and most lavish gifts to Tropical America these are Lilian the Lilia porparata lilias occur in various colors purples Browns greens and yellow in another color combination all lilians there are more than twenty thousand varieties of orchids only a few of them known to most of us and the more we learn of these Exquisite blooms the greater becomes the fascination of the incredible variation in their form and color [Music] foreign each variety has the amazing property of adjustment of its form and color to attract the particular insect necessary for its pollination [Music] the Cattleya aklondi e closely related to the Lilia this one is perhaps known to you as the corsage orchid this little Bloom is the flame Kathleen another surprise about orchids they store up nourishment in their bulbs and can be transported long distances without water or root material another Cattleya these tropical orchids are nearly all epiphycles that is air plants [Music] the girl is young very young and for the plant is about 500 years old there are plants supposed to be a thousand years old and authorities know no reason why orchid plants should ever die this white orchid is of a rare variety as for color there is hardly a shade which cannot be matched by some orchid in size the blooms vary from those as small as pinheads to those with petals 24 inches long we in the United States know about this use of orchids as an adornment for the ladies in the tropics however they are known sometimes to cover completely of villager's fence or a church roof oh [Music] trees often act as hosts for orchids but the notion that orchids are parasitic is wholly false the epiphytals or air plants never take nourishment from the tree they make their own substitute for Earth and arrange themselves nicely for drainage during the rainy season [Music] this fine specimen will flower long after the tree stump on which it's growing has disintegrated from old age on the other hand it takes months for an orchid seed to germinate and then you wait years for the first flower to appear [Music] on this tree trunk our orchids in all stages of growth plants from three to seven years old the white Corky Roots wandering over the bark absorbed from the atmosphere nourishment to be stored in the bulbs against drought at the base of the petals is nectar soon A Feast for hummingbirds and when Night comes for an assortment of insects by the way did you know that vanilla extract comes from the Pod of one of the orchids well it does foreign [Music] s have no fragrance The Fragrant varieties put forth their scent only during that part of the day or night when the particular insect necessary to carry its pollen is likely to come calling one variety has in the morning the odor of New Moon hay of lilac at midday and of Primrose in late afternoon and evening and there is one Orchid which emits such a stench that it's prudent to Circle about it at some distance foreign an East Indian variety but now quite at home in the western Tropics too [Music] some kids are expert mimics of insect life this one so much like a butterfly is the onsidium papillium [Music] tropical America is so abundantly blessed with orchids that it would take an artist several remarkable two are the annals of the Orchid Hunters who have explored the Wiles in search of new varieties and many have lost their lives in the jungle much luckier was the Orchid Hunter who firedy which he sold to an English firm for ten thousand dollars a grim detail is that one new Orchid was found beautifully blooming on a human skull possibly that of its original [Music] tried generic hybrid the Brasso catalilia parents and Grandparents were themselves hybrid it takes from 30 to 70 years to develop such a hybrid but when you have it it's not only beautiful but has an intense Pleasant fragrance foreign the Easter Orchid is centuries old nature as a rule Revels in Rich coloration in proclaiming the Orchid one of the highest forms of plant evolution she often uses combinations that would horrify a mere human color expert in developing the unparalleled variety and never-ending surprises of beauty and behavior of the Orchid family nature must have been in one of her jolliest