interestingly enough we had a botanist give a very good presentation Thursday night about orchids within the realms of ethnobotany. To tell the whole truth it was a hundred million times better then hearing the same guy come up and preach about the same boring orchid culture., Geez I'm a huge geek

Gaston

Yea that is interesting. Orchid, actually comes from the Greek word for testicles, which is from the Medieval philosophy of treating a disease with something that looks like, sounds like, resembles, etc. the part you were treating. That being said, orchids have historically been used to treat ailments from sexual dysfunction and have acted as aphrodisiacs. In fact, in Turkey and Armenia, there is a frozen ice cream using part of the orchid, and everyone knows about Vanilla. I just got done reading Orchid Fever, there is a great chapter on both topics.

On a funny note, my grandparents (Greek) thought it was hysterical everytime I was outside "playing with my orchids". (Watch my Big Fat Greek Wedding, there is funny bit about having three testicles). I have a great article about the uses of orchids in medicine, let me see if I can find it since my PC crashed.

Larissa,
It was your own post of 9th April on Edible Orchids that started an interesting thread which branched off into the realm of medicinal uses for orchids.....
By the way, what is a "Continental"? Icecream? Hamburger? I was too shy to ask at the time - didn't want to show how ignorant I was lol...
Judy

Judy- I remember the post from April. I had started it due to finding out that a local restaurant was serving Cosmopolitans (an alcoholic mixed drink) with what they called "edible orchid flowers" I had forgotten that that thread had also gone on to discuss medicinal uses as well. I had not realized that there were so many orchids can and have been used for medicinal purposes but I guess given how many different orchids there are in the world it really should not have come as a surprise.
:)

Larissa