Orchid show in Paris....

Les orchidées du Jardin du Luxembourg

From 5 to 15 Feb, 2010 the greenhouse 'Orangerie' of the Senate at the Jardins du Luxembourg, Paris is hosting a fabulous exhibit comemorating 150 years of a tropical orchid collection.  It is a fragile and unique collection in the care of the French Senate since 1860. Originally the collection belonged to the Botanical Garden of the Medicine School of Paris installed since 1838 in the south corner of the Jardins du Luxembourg. 

In 1860, mayor Haussmann expropriated the Medicine School and its Botanical Garden to open the boulevard Saint-Michel. The Senate proposes to harbour the school’s orchid collection in its greenhouses already one of the richest collections in Europe, with over 1,300 hybrids and species belonging to over 150 genuses, Many hybrids were developed at the end of the 19^th century. 

The exhibit includes selected exquisite orchids in flower at this time of the year, some of them very perfumed.

Already in 1838 Antonio José Peixoto, doctor to Brazil’s emperor D. Pedro II, himself a passionate lover of Natural History studies presented the curator of the collection to start on a collection of exotic orhcids and kicked off with a over 30 species including Laelia cinnabarina and Laelia cripsa.

A special exhibit shows the secrets of in vitro reproduction - a technique which has saved some very rare species and hybridization - another technique which has creates new varieties of orchids.

This exhibit comemorates the 150^th birthday of the orchid collection on the same year UNESCO declares the International Year of Biodiversity.

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