Kathy,
Actually I did not see the Nova program myself, just heard someone talk
about it. Sometimes (like this one) I regret not having a TV antenna or
cable. However, most of the time I think we've made a wise choice: I know if
I had TV reception I would spend hours watching it, and then I couldn't
spend all this time here on rgo, and read as many books as I do, etc.
Joanna

"K Barrett" wrote in message
news:z6QUb.186773$sv6.989867@attbi_s52...
That was a wonderful Nova program, wasn't it!! Made me start wondering
about
the same thing.

I know Alexis Pardo Isla once said that the orchids we grow are selected
for
those that will grow in flasking medium. So that would be a basic
difference between those we have in captivity and the wild type.

K Barrett


"J Fortuna" wrote in message
...
This is not off topic even though the beginning may sound like it is, so
please bear with me:

I recently heard that when wolves are tamed, one of the side-effects of
taming is that their fur turns a lighter color. I forget exactly what
the
explanation was, but I think it was something like the same chemical
substance being responsible for anxiety/fear/wildness in character as
well
as darkness of fur.

Leap in thinking from wolves to orchid plants ...

This made me wonder about some of the effects that cultivation has on
orchid
species.

I would guess that a cultivated orchid species might grow bigger and
live
longer than its wild counterpart of the same species, etc. That at least
would seam logical to me, since the cultivated species are likely to be
fertilized more regularly, and the environment is more likely to be
adjusted
to be closer to ideal conditions than might occur in nature, if the
grower
knows what they are doing. Also I know that plants within the species
won't
be exactly the same, and the orchid grower might decide to cross two
orchids
that are in the same species and share some trait that does not occur in
all
orchids of this species to try to promote this trait which might have
gotten
lost in the wild (where natural selection or chance might have caused
this
trait to not be propagated).

Any other ideas? Either based on your experience, your knowledge, or
your
hypothesizing on this subject?

I would be interested in finding out more. I wonder if there are any
effects
that cultivation has had on orchid species that are less obvious/logical
(similar to the lightening of fur in wolves, which I would never have
guessed if I had not learned about it).

Are there any good examples of orchids where the same species in
cultivation
tends to be quite different in some significant way from its wild
counterpart?

Thanks,
Joanna