Unexplainable - The wild orchid mystery

Episode Date: October 21, 2026

More than just beautiful flowers, wild orchids have been confounding scientists for years. Our friends at Sidedoor — a podcast from the Smithsonian — set out to find a rare specimen for themselves. Guest: ⁠Lizzie Peabody⁠, host of ⁠Sidedoor⁠ For show transcripts, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vox.com/unxtranscripts⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠For more, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vox.com/unexplainable⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠And please email us! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ We read every email. Support Unexplainable (and get ad-free episodes) by becoming a Vox Member today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vox.com/members⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So your decaf oat milk extra but not piping hot, four pumps of caramel, no sugar, small latte, and a large cup. That will be 10 minutes. No worries. I'm having fun on Playojo. And I keep it fun with all the latest slot and live casino games. Plus I get instant payouts with no minimum withdrawals. Here's your decaf oat milk extra but not piping hot. Ah, thanks. Playtime's over.

Mmm, lovely. Feel the fun. Playojo. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concern about your gambling or that is someone close to you. Call 1866-531-2600 to visit connectsontario.ca. Square knows that in hospitality, efficiency is everything.

That's why their system lets you take payments. Track sales, handle inventory, manage staff, send invoices, and keep up with finances all in one place. Apply through orders with zero mistakes. Get the data you need and keep everything working together. So you're ready for whatever's next. Learn more about their customizable plans at squareup.com. This is Unexplainable. I'm Bird Pinkerton. And today we have an episode from a show I have listened to for years.

side door from the Smithsonian. The host, Lizzie Peabody, takes you into the Smithsonian's incredibly rich collection of scientific and historical and artistic artifacts. And this episode in particular felt like a great fit for our show because it looks at a cool mystery that's hiding in plain sight, the mystery of orchids. These are beautiful flowers, my mom's favorite, obviously, but they are also far more than something you might give as a housewarming gift. They're delicate barometers of the ecosystems around us,

and they have a secret relationship to the underground world. So here is Side Door. Okay. We need some discussion. The spread is 77 to 86. Gordon, are you in or out? I was on the low end, although I was not the lowest score. It is a smaller flower.

This is the sound of a flower beauty contest. It does have good color, but it is not as dark. I'm eavesdropping on an event that happens every month. The National Orchid Society's D.C. area, orchid judging. People drive or ship their orchid plants from as far

away as Florida to have them evaluated by the 12 or so judges in this room. So what kind of orchid is this? This is a phalanopsis. This is a species that's related to the ones that you buy in the grocery store. Rob Grisbach gave me a hushed play-by-play at the back of the room, like we were watching a major golf tournament.

He's an accredited American Orchid Society judge. But even if you're a novice like me, you'd probably still recognize an orchid from the plant aisle at the grocery store. They have long, thin stems, usually attached to a wooden stick with what looks like a tiny hair clip and delicate, alien-looking flowers. These flowers are one of the things that judges are looking at as they pass each orchid around the table.

one plant coming up. Very nice. They consider color, size, texture, form. Well, the petals are not flat, are at least symmetrical, which is symmetrically wavy. A-symmetry is a killer in flowers. Becoming an orchid judge is no casual process. It took Rob six years to be fully accredited. I mentioned, too, and I mean, I started my PhD program at the same time I started doing

orchid judging, and I got my PhD two years sooner. Rob Grisbach has now been an orchid judge for over 40 years. And just like in fashion or architecture, he's seen the aesthetics of flowers evolve over time. But judges are always looking for beautiful anomalies. So what we're looking at is we're trying to improve mother nature for artificial traits we say are superior. So orchid judging is a little like judging a dog show. The winners get bred for their superior traits, and it's flowers like these that later end up in the grocery stores. But there's another side to orchids.

A wild side. Orchids are everywhere, not just in beauty pageants or at your local grocery store. They're up in the trees, underground, even in the Arctic. And they're incredibly varied. A single orchid plant can be as tiny as an ant, or weigh as much as a rhinoceros. And those little specks in your vanilla ice cream? Orchid seeds. But wild orchids are disappearing.

Over half of orchids worldwide are thought to be endangered or threatened. And this is important because for ecologists, orchids are the canary in the coal mine. When environments change, orchids are often the first plants to disappear. They hint at environmental changes we might not notice. So how close are these orchids that are being judged to, native orchids found in the wild. They're not at all. Rob says, like dogs and wolves, they're related, but still very different.

You know, a chihuahua is not very close to the wolf. So this time on side door, we leave the chihuahuas at home and set off in search of the wolves of the orchid world. Or rather, a lone wolf, the small world Pugonia, a secretive flower that Smithsonian ecologists have been working to reestablish in the wild. but to do it, they have to solve a pesky problem they've been working on for 15 years. How to grow one. If a suburban windowsill is home to the orchid chihuahuas, then a muggy, buggy forest is home to the orchid wolves. It's all the ticks, chiggers.

Mosquitoes are kind of bad today, so I hope you put on the ripe perfume. And that's where I headed with Dennis Wiggum. He's a senior botanist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, where a lot of research focuses on forest ecology, especially how plants growing on the forest floor respond to natural changes, as well as those caused by people. One of those forest plants is the small, world, pogonia. World.

Not world. Whirl. World. W-H-O. Whirl. The Small World Pogonia is one of over 200 orchid species native to North America. It grows from Georgia to Maine, but like most native orchids, it's rare and getting rarer in the wild. The Small World Pagonia is now extinct in some places where it used to be found, like Maryland and D.C.

But there's a secret grove of them here in Virginia. It is so beautiful and lush out here. We walked down a dirt trail and so. Soon the noise of the highway died away, and all we could hear were the birds and the sound of our own feet. Well, mostly Dennis's feet. Dennis, your boots are very musical. Makes for great audio. Yeah.

Okay, we're going to turn left here now and walk in the woods. Ooh, all right. If I hadn't been following Dennis, I'd probably still be in those woods. Dennis, how do you even remember where you're going out here? Well, I've been here a few times. Hang on, I'm caught up my cord. There we go. I got snagged.

Our destination was a forest glade, where Smithsonian researchers have studied a population of small-world pogonia for decades. A few years ago, this group of orchids was down to just a handful of plants. Then something surprising happened. A tree fell. And the very next spring, 49 new small world bologna sprang up. Okay, here we are.

And Dennis wants to know why. Wow. This is it. And that's the tree we were telling about it died. Wow. This feels like a really magical place. This is magical. I mean, this is so far above anything we've seen in the 15 years we've been working with this species.

This is amazing. We stood in a clearing, speckled with dozens of tiny flags. each one marking a little green plant. This is an orchid? That's the Small World Pagonia. That's what we focus on. It doesn't look anything like the orchids that I have seen before. The Small World Pagonia looks like a little green star-shaped umbrella.

The top of the umbrella where the leaves spread out is called the Whirl. And it's a small whirl, after all. When the Small World Pagonia blooms, which only happens for about 10 days a year, it produces a white flower that looks, to me, like a little dragon's mouth with the mustaches on either side. I could see that. I could see that. But it's a green dragon that's wearing a skirt made of five leaflets. Yeah, it's a dragon with a tutu. Yes.

Melissa McCormick is a research scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. She was already at the site when we arrived, counting orchids and nests. marking each newfound plant with a flag. She and Dennis have also put wire cages around the plants to stop deer from snacking on them. Sometimes deer will definitely seek out orchids. I think this is one that they like because it's nice and soft and juicy and deer can just nip the whole thing off in one bite. But the greatest danger to these orchids isn't deer.

It's actually people. That's why this site is top secret. Have there been instances of people finding out where rare orchid populations are and then coming and disturbing them? Yes, that happens all the time. So there are orchid poachers, essentially? There are absolutely orchid poachers. Frighteningly many.

What kinds of people do you think? I mean, who are the orchid poachers? Unscrupulous people who decide that this is a rare orchid and they want one for their yard will come and dig them up. And digging up one of these orchids means certain death. For the orchids, not the people. So the people who are seeking these out know a lot about orchids, presumably, and they would know that digging one up is a death sentence.

Well, one would hope they would know that. But there's knowing it in your head and there's knowing it in your heart and there's thinking, oh, but I can make it right for this one. It won't die on me. But it will. It will die because the small world Pagonia has an unlikely but necessary bedfell. fellow called fungus. Here's what we know about that relationship. Orchid seeds are as fine as dust.

They are so small, there's not enough food inside the seed for the orchid to begin to grow on its own. It needs to be fed by something else. Enter our friend, the fungus. In a single teaspoon of soil, there are about 150 different kinds different kinds of fungi. And some of them will form relationships with orchids. So is it the fungus that chooses the orchid or the orchid that chooses the fungus?

It seems to be the orchid that chooses the fungus. Okay. And orchids are choosy. To put it in terms of a romantic relationship, some orchids are monogamous. They'll partner with one kind of fungus their whole life. And if that type of fungus isn't around, they can't grow. Other orchids are polygamists. They'll form relationships with several different kinds of fungi. and others are serial monogamists. They partner with one fungus to grow from a seed, and then later in life, invite a different fungus to grow into their roots and be eaten.

And why the fungus grows in there? We don't know. So it does seem like a kind of a one-sided relationship. Come into my house. I won't eat you. Just kidding. Exactly. I think it's kind of a nice turnaround. I mean, for anybody who's grown plants, you know that fungal pathogens are the bane of your... existence. In this case, we have a plant parasitizing the fungus, and as far as I'm concerned, turnabout is fair play. So not exactly the model of a healthy romantic relationship, but orchids will be orchids. And it's because of this relationship that orchids are able to give us

information about subtle environmental changes. And a good way to think about it is that orchids, because of this adaptation they have in interacting with fungi. If the fungi are there, which means it's a healthy ecosystem, then the orchids are going to be there. So if you start to change things around, then the orchid will suffer from that. It's a group of plants that if they're present, you have a healthy ecosystem. Dennis and Melissa are pretty sure

that the sudden reemergence of the small world pegonia near the fallen tree has to do with the presence of fungi in the soil. But as a scientist, the only way to be sure sure you understand a process in the wild is to replicate it in the lab. And that's exactly what Melissa and Dennis are trying to do, combining orchid seeds with fungus to try to raise little orchid wolves in captivity. So it's a good thing the Smithsonian just so happens to have the largest bank of orchid fungi in the world. And that's where we'll meet you after the break. So your decaf oat milk extra but not piping hot, four pumps of caramel, no sugar, small latte, and a large cup.

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We are the internet's Wall Street and Silicon Valley Big Sisters. Tune in every Monday for Late Night Sister Talk meets Bordroom Strategy. Check out Tiger Sisters on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Tiger Fing. We're back and we made it out of here and renovating the whole suite. We're back and we made it out of the forest. As you can hear, I'm still following Dennis Wiggum, this time down the hall at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland.

He's leading us to the plant ecology lab, which is currently orchid central. We're here because the world has an orchid problem. Over half of the world's orchids are in danger. or threatened. Smithsonian scientists are working to reestablish healthy populations in the wild, and to do that, they need to better understand how they grow. I thought I knew how plants grow. You plant a seed, give it water and light, and presto.

But for orchids, it's not that simple. Because orchids in the wild have evolved complex relationships with fungi in their environment. If you take them out of the environment where those fungi live, they die. So Dennis Wiggum and Melissa McCormick have a very simple goal for the small world Pagonia. The goal is to bring the fungus and the seed together and watch the magic happen. Exactly. Yeah, that's the ultimate goal. Except...

No one yet has figured out how to germinate the seeds of small world Pagonia. No one, anywhere, has done it. At least not yet. But Smithsonian scientists have something others don't. What you're looking at right there is the largest collection in the world of orchid microisosophongai. This vast collection of orchid fungus looks a lot like a stack of Tupperware containers on a shelf. That's because it is. But even if you're someone who gets extra mushrooms on your pizza,

this fungus collection doesn't look like anything you'd want to eat. Oh, that's gross looking. Melissa eventually will want to identify what these things are. Can I hold it? Dennis handed me a clear plastic container, and inside was a poof of fuzzy white fungus. And that's what they look like when they first start to grow out, is they look like a little white or slightly cream snowflake. Melissa and Dennis have amassed this collection by pulling little fungus balls from the roots of orchids, then placing each fungus ball in its own container to grow.

Then they can identify the fungus through DNA sequencing. They've done this with hundreds of different kinds of fungi. And side note, 99% of these fungi are completely new to science. They're basically creating a collection of eligible young orchid suitors. So you are essentially a fungus orchid matchmaker. Yeah, that's what I'd like to become when I grow up, yeah. And for the small world begonia, that match is made. Through the fungus banking process, Dennis and Melissa have learned that our little orchid

forms a relationship with a fungus that is actually pretty common in the forest. So good news. Except... There's a little bit of a problem with the small world prergonia fungus because it's one of these that interacts with tree roots. Specifically, living tree roots. They are dependent on that tree. And then the orchid is dependent on that fungus.

I see. So you have to bring the whole chain into the lab. And last time I checked, trees don't fit in labs very well. This is not a hypothetical. Melissa and Dennis already tried bringing oak trees into the lab. We put the fungus with the oak roots and tried to get it established there, and it just didn't work. This may have been because they were baby trees, and young trees don't have nutrients to spare the way that mature trees do. But mature trees are too well established in the ground to be relocated. So they tried growing the fungus without the tree.

By feeding it the nutrients, it would have. have gotten from the roots. That didn't work either. So it makes it very challenging. That happens to be a very challenging species to work with. So what do you do when half of a couple is not cooperating? Well, like any single person done with dating, you forge a head solo, footloose and fungus-free. And it is possible to trick some orchid seeds into growing without the partner fungus by placing the seed on a bed of orchid food. But even though this approach has worked with other kinds of orchids, So far, the small world begonia will not be tricked into sprouting sands fungus. But every failure is a step closer to a solution.

So you have a two-part problem. One is that you cannot get the seed to germinate. Right. And the second is that the fungus that you believe you need in order to get the seed to germinate in the lab, you are having difficulty growing in the lab because it needs to be attached to a tree root. Exactly. But we haven't given up. There are a variety of approaches we can still use that we haven't.

exhausted yet. Next, Melissa and Dennis and their team are experimenting with tweaking the orchid food recipe, refrigerating seeds to simulate seasonal changes, and even exposing them to smoke to imitate forest fires. And through all of this, they learn more about the environment necessary for the small world pogonia to grow. This means they'll have a better understanding of what it's not getting in the places where it's disappearing.

While Melissa, Dennis, and their team will continue to work on solving the puzzle. of the Small World Pogonia, that's just one piece of a much bigger problem. Over 100 orchid species are disappearing from North America, and like the Small World Pagonia, each has its own unique preferences. At this rate, a lot of these orchids may be lost to science before there's time to figure out how they grow. So Dennis has done what we all do when a project is just too big. Called in Friends.

In partnership with the United States Botanic Garden, created the North American Orchid Conservation Center, also called NAOC. It's a network of collaborators all over the U.S. and Canada, all working to conserve native orchids. We know that one orchid is not the same as another orchid, and if we're going to conserve orchids, we need to make sure that we do all the right things to capture their genetic diversity and have it available for future efforts to restore and conserve the species. The idea is to safeguard orchid seeds and orchid fungi, so that even if it takes a few more decades to figure out how to make the orchids grow,

and even if during that time the orchid goes extinct in the wild, they'll still have the genetic material they need to bring it back. So all those fungi in the bank... You're going to freeze them like Han Solo style? Yeah. Yeah, we're going to put them onto something where they're happy, and when somebody brings them out some years later, they will start growing again.

That's the ultimate goal. Dennis says when an ecosystem is healthy, orchids are there. But when they're not, it hints at some invisible breakdown. So Dennis wants to see them back in the places where they once were. Part of at least my vision for the long-term conservation is once we know how to create the environment in which the fungus and the orchid are both happy, we can give those to homeowners. And they can create environments in their gardens, and things like that, where they can grow these orchids,

and they probably will be able to put orchids back in places where they probably were until we made them into houses and shopping malls and things like that. So the more we can repopulate orchids in the landscape, the greater the chance they can respond on their own to changing climate, to changing conditions, and survive. So the Holy Grail for you might be walking past somebody's house and looking down and seeing the small world Pagonia growing up.

in their front yard. You got it. I'd buy them a beer. That round of beers is still some years away. But for now, Dennis, Melissa, and their team will continue to study the small world Pagonia and keep trying to make it grow. It's not a question of if at this point. It's a question of when.

And when that day comes, I plan to fill my own yard with a ballet full of little white dragons in tutus. You've been listening to Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX. If you'd like to see snapshots from the Orchid Judging Competition or get a few tips on how to keep your Orchid Chihuahua alive, you can find them in our newsletter. Subscribe at sI.edu slash siddoor. That's sI.edu slash siddoor. And tell us what you think of the show. If you enjoy Side Door, leave us a review in Apple Podcasts.

That means you, Mom. We love hearing what you think of the show, and the reviews help us reach new listeners. Side Door is made possible with help from people like you. Your generous support helps make all the amazing work you hear about at the Smithsonian possible. Our podcast team is Justin O'Neill, Jason Orfanon, Michelle Harvin, Caitlin Schaefer, Jess Sautic, and Lara Koch. Episode artwork is by Greg Fisk. Extra support comes from John Barth and Genevieve Sponsler. Our show is mixed by Tarak Fuda.

Our theme song and other episode music are by Breakmaster Cylinder. If you want to sponsor our show, please email sponsorship at PRX.org. I'm your host, Lizzie Peabody. Thanks for listening. I don't know. It's just not reaching me. It doesn't curve back at the base, which is what a lot of the cucklopodal and hybrids. It's trying to. It just, you can't see it.

So your decaf oat milk, but not piping hot, four pumps of caramel, no sugar, small latte, and a large cup. That will be 10 minutes. No worries. I'm having fun on Playojo. And I keep it fun with all the latest slot and live casino games. Plus I get instant payouts with no minimum withdrawals. Here's your decaf oat milk extra but not piping hot. Ah, thanks. Playtime's over.

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