The orchid family, Orchidaceae, is one of the largest and most diverse plant families. It includes nearly 30,000 known species. The Missouri Botanical Garden has one of the largest, and oldest, living collections of orchids in the world. It also has an expansive collection of orchids in its Herbarium.
The Garden’s Herbarium is one of the largest in the world with 8 million specimens. That includes 98,177 orchid specimens, representing 13,491 unique known species. Specimens come from around 200 different countries and highlight the vast diversity of this amazing plant family.
Here are a few highlights from the Garden’s collection of orchids in the Herbarium:
Oldest Orchid in the Herbarium
Orchids are one of the oldest plant family, with fossil records dating orchids back at least 100 million years. That means they orchids existed at the same time as some dinosaurs! The Missouri Botanical Garden doesn’t have any orchids that old, but its Herbarium does have a specimen from the 18th Century collected on Captain James Cook’s first voyage.
Specimen: Dendrobium involutum Lindl.
Year collected: 1769
Collected from: Society Islands in French Polynesia
Collector: Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander
Smallest Orchid in the herbarium
Named by the Guinness Book of World records as the smallest orchid in the world, Platystele jungermannioides is less than an inch tall with tiny flowers that are only 2.5 mm, or .09 inches, wide. Its home is in the cloud forests of Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama.
Specimen: Platystele jungermannioide
Year collected: 1968
Collected from: Panama
Collector: Missouri Botanical Garden Scientist Robert Dressler
Largest orchid in the Herbarium
Also aptly called the giant orchid, Grammatophyllum speciosum, can grow as tall as 25 feet high. Clumps of orchids in this species can weigh up to 2 tons. This hefty orchid is also called the tiger orchid, sugar cane orchid, or queen of orchids.
Specimen: Grammatophyllum speciosum
Year collected: 2000
Collected from: Indonesia
Collector: S. Riswan, JJ. Afriastini, Nurdin, A. Hidayat
Longest Nectar Spur
In 1862, Charles Darwin theorized that a not-yet-described moth with a long proboscis must be the pollinator of an orchid with a notably long nectar spur. Scientists described the large hawkmoth Xanthopan praedicta, 41 years after his prediction. This story of a unique plant and pollinator is one of the most celebrated predictions of the theory of evolution.
Since then, scientists have described orchids with even longer nectar spurs, including a new species Missouri Botanical Garden scientists described in 2024 with the the longest nectar spur of any known plant relative to flower size. Angraecum eburneum var. longicalcar still sets the record for the longest overall, with a nectar spur growing as long as 40 cm.
Specimen: Angraecum longicalcar (Bosser) Senghas.
Year collected: 1964
Collected from: Madagascar
Collector: J. Bosser
Did you know? Orchids have many different pollinators, which is why the orchid family is so diverse. Orchids are pollinated by bees, wasps, flies, moths, butterflies, and even birds. Some species are pollinated by a single pollinator.
From Farthest Away
More than 9,000 miles from St. Louis, Australia is home to around 1,500 native orchid species. The Garden’s Herbarium has more than 400 Australian orchids in its collection, including Diuris laxiflora, commonly known as the bee orchid.
Specimen: Diuris laxiflora
Year collected: 1982
Collected from: Western Australia
Collector: Åke Strid
Did you know? The bee orchid illustrates many unique ways orchids are pollinated. The flowers mimic female bees to trick male bees into mating with the flower, resulting in pollination.
Rarest Orchid
Half of the orchid species on the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction. This includes 479 endangered orchids, 271 critically endangered orchids, and six extinct species.
Less than 10 percent of known orchid species are on the Red List. Only 2,034 orchid species out of the 29,524 accepted species have been Red Listed.
With so many of the world’s orchids facing the threat of extinction, it’s hard to quantify the “rarest orchid.” The ghost orchid, Dendrophylax lindenii, has garnered attention due to its unique appearance. This leafless orchid is native to Florida, the Bahamas, and Cuba. Only about 1,500 of these orchids left in Florida. Environmental groups asked for federal protect of the ghost orchid in 2023.
This unique species got a shoutout on the Netflix series “Wednesday,” although the show incorrectly stated it was carnivorous and first discovered on the Isle of Wright in 1854.
Specimen: Dendrophylax lindenii.
Year collected: 1981
Collected from Florida
Who collected it: Florida Botanist John Beckner
Catherine Martin | Senior Public Information Office
Thanks to Gunter Fischer, Senior Vice President Science & Conservation Research, and Jordan Teisher, Curator and Director of the Garden’s Herbarium for their contributing expertise and information.
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