Though President Thabo Mbeki had one orchid named after him in Singapore this week, there are already about 200 Zuma orchids on the International Orchid Register.
Unfortunately for the deputy president, most of them seem to be named for California’s Zuma Valley, an orchid-growing centre.
The register, maintained by staff at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in London, lists hybrids such as Zuma’s Delight, Zuma Charmer, Zuma Cutie, Zuma Scamp, Zuma Headliner, Zuma Innocence, Zuma Supreme, Zuma White Puff and Zuma Zip.
There are also several Mandelas, including one clearly named for the former president — the Nelson Mandela, registered by the Singapore Botanic Gardens after his state visit there in 1997.
Curiously enough, another orchid, the Odontia Mandela, was registered in 1930, well before Nelson began to make his mark on the world.
There is a Phalaenopsis hybrid named Tutu, which some imaginative breeder crossed with a Spuyten Duyvil (Devil’s Whirlpool) in 1994.
But the Tutus in the orchid world are more likely to refer to the dancer’s dress than to South Africa’s favourite churchman; there are also hybrids named White Tutu and Pink Tutu.
In its recent unsuccessful bid to host the 2011 World Orchid Congress, the South African Orchid Council did formally get Tutu’s permission to name a hybrid after him.
It got similar permission from former president FW de Klerk, satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys, business magnate Cyril Ramaphosa and songstress Miriam Makeba, which means orchid-growers in years to come will be able to experiment by crossing an Mbeki with a Ramaphosa, or a Tutu with a De Klerk.
The president of the council, Ann Duckworth, said on Friday that the act of cross-pollinating orchids is not particularly difficult.
”Some people do it with a matchstick and two flowers,” she said. ”But it’s the years that it takes before it flowers.”
One genus, the Cattleya, takes six months from pollination to produce a usable seed pod.
Powder-like seeds are sown on sterile agar in a flask, split up when they reach a certain size, then planted out. From flask to flower could be as long as six years and takes at least two to three years.
”It’s a long process,” she said.
Normally, the person who creates a hybrid is the person who registers a name for it.
According to the senior registrar in the RHS’ botany department, Julian Shaw, there are about 125 000 names on the register, while unregistered crosses could bring the total number of hybrids to as many as 200 000.
He has not yet received the Singaporean application for registration of the Mbeki.
”But I do know they like to name them for heads of state and royal family members,” he said.
Shaw said he receives up to 500 applications a month, and that orchids are one of the major botanical industries in the world today.
”The only thing that beats them is poinsettias in the [United] States at Christmas,” he said. — Sapa