Suddenly my friend asked me if the blue orchid or ghost orchid that appeared in one of the Korean Dramas was real or not. I know that drama and the flower, but I never thought this was a big deal. Maybe many people, like my friend, believe that everything in the show is real or curious about whether the blue orchid is real.
In half of curiosity, I try to find out about the orchid. Basically, some orchids have a blueish colour. But the exact form of “blue orchid or gosht orchid” in drama is a creation-based actual living plant. Why?
My little research on internet news related to the drama said that this orchid is Epipogium aphyllum and that “Ghost orchid” is the common name of this plant. But the physical of Epipogium aphyllum is so different from what you see in a drama. In real life, she has light yellow colour on her sepal and petal, then the column and labellum are some white with purple dots. If the orchid in the drama is Epipogium aphyllum, it should grow in the ground or deep shade of dense woodland or decaying tree, not at the living tree like in the show. It refers to based journal “Biological Flora of the British Isles”; you can check it yourself.
When I saw a real-life Epipogium aphyllum picture and read the description, she sounded like mushrooms or fungi because they don’t have chlorophyll and live in a specific habitat. Epipogium aphyllum habitat is in some Europe areas and some of east Asia (including South Korea). This plant can’t be cultivated, so the Ghost Orchid maybe can be called rare.
Ghost Orchid is also the common name of another plant called Dendrophylax lindenii. Here is the exciting part, the orchid in the drama have different looks from Epipogium aphyllum but is more similar to Dendrophylax lindenii, except for the colour. Fun fact, Dendrophylax lindenii is native to Florida and Cuba and have pale yellow petal and white in the labellum area. This flower has a unique shape of the labellum; there have two tiny legs.
Another similarity between Dendrophylax lindenii and Ghost Orchid in Drama is that they live on a tree. Their flower stem, too, looks more sturdy than Epipogium aphyllum.
I still have the slightest curiosity about the colour in drama and found that there is a plant called the “Blue-Lady Orchid” who have purplish blue. Blue-Lady Orchid or Thelymitra crinita has a slightly similar column shape to an orchid in drama. But, she is a typical ground orchid.
So, that’s the reason why I called the Ghost Orchid in Korean Drama a creation-based living plant. It looked like a combination of Dendrophylax lindenii shape, Thelymitra crinita colour, and was labelled to Epipogium aphyllum live story.
I’m not a biologist, but lately, I have learned about botany. So pardon me if I still miss some critical information.
