OrchidKitty wrote:
Most of my orchids are hybrids, but some growers are drawn nearly
exclusively to species orchids. Why? Is it because species can be more
difficult to grow? Or because species do have a pure, modest beauty? Or
is the grower hoping to conserve them? If you grow mostly species
orchids, do you know why you prefer them?

As you said, "there's something special about having an orchid that a
person could find in the wild." For me, half the fun of growing an
orchid is learning about its natural history: where it grows, what
pollinates it and how, what other plants grow in the same habitat, what
its evolutionary relationship is with similar species. For that
reason, given a choice between an award quality line bred plant and a
wild-type plant with some locality data and a flower that an insect
might actually like, I'd probably choose the latter.

After species, old hybrids with lots of history would be my choice over
the newest flashy thing.

I do have a few big flashy hybrids, but they are mainly kept because
they please my wife and look nice on display. The bulk of my
collection, both orchids and non-orchids is little species orchids
backed up by a bulging folder of xeroxed botany papers.

Nick