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Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 192, 16 August 1927, Page 5

"The orchid is so useless!" (says the "N.Z. Smallholder," in its special orchid issue). "In its whole vast army of 7500 species, 2000 of which the nurserymen have thought fit to catalogue, only one gives us anything we can feed or clothe or comfort ourselves with beyond a buttonhole. They are indeed the 'idle rich' of flowerdom. But the one exception condones for all else. The exception is the vanilla orchid—the goddess of ice creams and cakes, piquant beverages and the most precious of all the confections of the pastrycook's art. He would indeed be a sorry artificer without his vanilla!