The orchid: the flower of the two sexes

Yesterday I plucked an orchid to put in my buttonhole; it was an admirable thing, all stained, as effective as the seven deadly sins.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

When, in 2014, we sat down to choose the name of what would become our eBook series, it came naturally to look for something that symbolised pleasure. The orchid, as a flower, seemed perfect. Its appearance is undoubtedly reminiscent of female genitalia, but without being offensive or vulgar. And so La Novella Orchidea was born. We still pay tribute today, through our novellas, to everything that revolves around the great secret of female pleasure.

The origins of the orchid

In fact, the origins of the orchid are decidedly more male-related. Although the botanical classification of orchids was only carried out in the 18th century by Linnaeus in his treatise Species Plantarum, their name first appeared between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC by Theophrastus. The Greek philosopher, in his treatise on pharmaceutical botany Historia Plantarum, chose to call this plant órchis (testicle), precisely because of the characteristic presence of two spherical tubercles at the base of the roots.

It even seems that it was the gods themselves who purposely created the orchid with this shape. Myth has it that Orchis, a young man born from the union of a nymph and a satyr, inherited his mother’s beauty and his father’s libido. Passionate and daring, he attempted to seduce a priestess of Dionysus, being punished by the god himself, who fed him to ferocious beasts. The other gods, pitiless, caused a delicate plant, the orchid, to grow from the remains of Orchis. Antithesis of her exuberant body, in its roots, however, it retained the memory of the male anatomical parts that had been the cause of her demise.

The myths of the orchid

From this myth arose numerous legends and popular beliefs about the aphrodisiac and curative powers of this plant for female sterility. For example, Dioscorides (a 1st century AD physician and botanist) believed that if a man ate the largest bulb of certain orchid species, he would have a male child. Conversely, if a woman ate the small one, she would have a female child.

On the other hand, the ‘testicles’ of the Satyrium, a species of orchid so called because it was believed to be the food of satyrs, would have been highly aphrodisiacal if ingested with red wine. The legend must have somehow made it to the present day. From the maceration of the dried tubers of different orchid species, in fact, a flour is obtained for the preparation of a juice drunk in Turkey and Albania.

Plants of very long standing – the oldest remains are dated to 65 million years ago -, orchids have also always been appreciated in the East. The first treatise on their cultivation was published in China and dates back to the 11th century. The orchid association with spring festivals still persists, as an apotropaic symbol.

The orchid in Europe

The Europeans, during colonisation, imported the first tropical orchid species from the West Indies. It was only with Darwin and his studies on orchid reproduction that the search for new varieties was initiated.

Although belonging to one large botanical family, the Orchidaceae, orchids comprise a truly vast number of genera, species and varieties, to which a great deal of meaning is also attached.

Unlike in the East, where it symbolises purity and innocence in the West the orchid is more associated with love and passion. But that is not all. It also has a strong Christian symbolism, both because of the spots that dot its petals (the blood of Christ) and because of the ‘sandal’ shape that some species have, due to their swollen labellum.

For example, the popular ‘Scarpetta di Venere’, which flourishes throughout our Alps and was later Christianised into ‘Pianella della Madonna’, is linked to a Greek legend. According to the legend, the goddess Aphrodite lost a precious gold-embroidered slipper during a storm. An ordinary mortal found it, but before it was touched (and thus defiled), the stocking turned into a plant. The shape and colour of the flower would therefore derive from a divine shoe. The beauty of this orchid is such that it has become the symbol of the Madonna in the months when the plant blooms.

But not all wild orchids are religious: the Orchis Italica, one of the most widespread on our peninsula, has flowers that look like naked men!

The orchid in literature

Even in literature, especially at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the orchid assumed an important role. From a pure and delicate flower, it became rather the symbol of that decadence and lasciviousness that authors such as Proust and D’Annunzio loved to recount. In the middle of the 20th century, then, it took on an even monstrous, noir-like significance, especially in Italy and the United States. It was precisely the detective genre that definitively cleared this flower through customs in crime novels. How can we not remember detective Nero Wolfe’s personal orchid greenhouse?

We at La Novella Orchidea, however, believe that this flower is special above all for its intersexuality, embracing both female and male characters. And we would like to conclude with another Epirus legend that points to an even more significant origin of the orchid.

The legend tells of Orchid, a beautiful boy who, during puberty, grew two breasts. As he developed, his body took on increasingly feminine connotations, to the point where it was impossible to determine his sex. For this reason, ostracised by both boys and girls, Orchid threw himself off a cliff in despair. But on the meadow where he fell, the gods made a beautiful plant grow from the drops of his blood. The orchid, the flower of the two sexes.