Exotic orchids

Press, 3 December 1982, Page 5 (Supplement)

Exotic orchids

When the painter Digby Graham was a boy of six, his parents brought him to New Zealand and settled in Whangarei. The lush forest, rugged open spaces and warm climate of Northland were soon to capture the young boy’s heart. At the age of 12 he painted his first orchid. It was a member of the genus Paphiopedilum. more commonly known as the slipper orchid. Digby Graham went on to paint 37 slipper orchids, employing his botanical experience and training in the fine arts to produce works that are at once accurate in their detail and beautifully evocative in their splendour. Digby Graham died in 1979, his paintings a lasting achievement but his ambition to produce a book containing them unfulfilled. The task of completing the book fell to Digby’s wife, Robin. That book, “Slipper Orchids: The Art of Digby Graham,” reproduces all 37 of the paintings and includes species descriptions, line drawings of botanical detail, notes- on classification and cultivation, and historical accounts of the discovery of the

genus Paphiopedilum and its place in European society. “The plant was expressly designed to comfort the elect human beings in this age." according to Mr Frederick Boyle, doyen chronicler of the Victorian orchid scene. Mr H. G. Reichenbach, ' a recognised authority on orchid classification, permitted himself a remarkable blend of fancy and fact - when he recorded the - discovery of Paphiopedilum roebbelinii. “The plant (species or abherrant variety, we know not which) is an epicurean creature since it lives only on the borders of the finest limpid rivulets, drinking in idyllic peace by the aid of its long roots, the murmuring water.” The collection of orchids in the drawing rooms and conservatories of Victorian society became a- passion, and for many a destructive obsession. In the name of preserving exclusive ownership, whole forests were burnt to ensure the elimination of seedlings. Preservation was confined by many to conservatories like that of the sixth Duke of Devonshire, which measured 84 by 37 metres with a stud

of 20 metres. Within 10 years it housed the largest private collection of orchids anywhere. Today the orchid attracts much the same fascination, but the challenge is not to discover new species so much as to preserve the identity of those that are already known to exist. Digby Graham had fixed views on this issue, dividing the world of orchid cultivators in two. There were the “splitters,” those who sought to create new hybrid varieties, and the “lumpers,” among whom he numbered himself, who sought to preserve the species at a minimum number. In New Zealand he shared his interest with a number of other orchid lovers, in particular Ronald Roy, John Campbell and Clem Stokell. Ronald Roy, who recently retired from, the position of Regional Superintendent of Education for the South Island, has made a special contribution to the book, writing the species descriptions and the chapter on classifying and cultivating this most exotic of plants. The book costs $45.