Sue,

Actually that piece of info about the mistaken belief that the gender of a
child being determined by the size of orchid tuber eaten is another piece of
trivia reported in the Smithsonian/AOS book that I was referencing in my
earlier post. However, in the "Ultimate Orchid" book this is presented as a
quote from John Parkinson around 1640, who in turn is claiming that he is
presenting the belief of Dioscorides from the first century AD, an advocate
of the Doctrine of Signatures (so we don't know if any Europeans actually
believed this, we just know that one European claimed that another European
believed this a long long time ago). According to this quote though it's not
the mother who is supposed to eat the root, it's the father who is supposed
to do the munching if he wants a son, and he should choose the bigger of the
two tubers, whereas if the mother wants a girl, she should eat the smaller
of the two tubers of the Cynorkis orchid (note: not mention of shriveled or
unhealthy). This seems not as prejudiced as all that: 1) if it is true that
Dioscorides actually believed this in the first century AD, it's interesting
that already then someone thought that the gender of a child might have
something to do with the father and isn't just up to the mother; 2) As long
as the girl-child tuber does not need to be unhealthy, I have no problem
with it being the smaller of the two, after all on average women are smaller
than men, and the Doctrine of Signatures claimed that the size of a thing in
nature indicated its usefulness. So it would seem that in the original
version of this theory no offense to girls and women was intended. It's
still a false theory, but to err is human.

I think it is fascinating sometimes to find out more about beliefs of
different people about orchids over the centuries. Since these plants have
fascinated people for so long, a lot of imagination was spent contemplating
them, and some of it is really bizarre. :-)

Best,
Joanna

"Susan Erickson" wrote in message
...
snip
Here I think it is his own prejudice showing.
Vij added that though it has not been scientifically proven, long ago,
Europeans believed that if expectant mothers ate healthy tubers of
orchids
they would produce a male child and if they ate shrivelled tubers they
would
be bestowed with a baby girl.