It is just a few days before the South African Orchid Council’s (SAOC) National Show. It is a three-day event that will be held from October 18 to 20 in the motor museum at Casterbridge Lifestyle Centre.

The Lowveld Orchid Group will host this event, comprising a show with plant exhibits, a conference and an orchids workshop. Tickets will be available at the door for R20 each. Children under 10 and pensioners will enter for free on the Friday.

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The Orchids 101 workshop will take place on Saturday at the cinema in Casterbridge. The tickets will be available at the venue on the day at R100 per person.

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The ticket will also double as an entry for the show for Saturday. Orchids are said to be a diverse and widespread family of flowering plants. Here are some things you need to know about them
Ten things you did not know about orchids

• Orchids grow in many habitats around the world. Many grow in trees in tropical areas, but there are also a large number that have adapted to growing in harsh conditions. There are even some that grow and flower underground.

• Orchids have many clever tricks to deceive pollinators into thinking that they are in fact something else. Some mimic other flowers or even other insects in order to attract their pollinator of choice.

• Other orchids have developed mechanisms to delay the pollinators, to ensure the orchid will be pollinated. Some have buckets that fill with liquid and others have lips that entrap insects and only release them after a few minutes.
• The tallest orchid plants in the world come from Peru and can grow to heights of over thirteen meters. The plants were only recently discovered and are called Sobralia altissima.
• There are many orchids with flowers smaller than a few millimetres in diameter.
• The monkey-faced orchids seen on social media is a large group of orchids from the Andes Mountains in South America. The genus is called Dracula. They are thought to mimic mushrooms, as they are pollinated by fungus gnats that can also be found on mushrooms too.
• The family Orchidaceae is one of the largest families in the plant family. There are more than thirty thousand species spread across the world.
• Orchids do not like to stay wet, but instead like to dry out between waterings.
• Vanilla is an orchid. The seeds that you flavour your cake with are in fact the seeds from a vanilla orchid flower. These are grown commercially and hand-pollinated by workers.
• Orchids are not parasites. The misconception stems from the fact that many orchids grow on trees and as epiphytes. However, the orchid uses the tree only as a host and will not kill the tree nor does it derive any sustenance from the tree.