Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen

Author:Eric Hansen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

PERFUMED LEGS AT THE OYSTER BAR

Coryanthes speciosa

I met Sandro Cusi in a cafeteria near Battery Park while he was attending the New York Orchid Show as an exhibitor and speaker. By this time I had developed a special interest in the pollination strategy of the Mexican bucket orchid, Coryanthes speciosa, and because Sandro is an orchid grower from Mexico, I thought he would be a good person to talk to about the plant. But first I wanted to know how Sandro had become involved with orchids.

“It was a long time ago,” he said. “At least thirty years. There was an old plant collector who used to come to the open-air flower market in Mexico City. He sold cactus and orchids and his name was Teódulo Chávez. He was an Indian and he was already an old man when I first met him. Teódulo was one of those rare, soft-spoken experts. He was money-poor, but he loved plants, he loved people, and he loved life. The sort of person we don’t see much of anymore. He had collected plants for some very famous people when he was younger.”

“Which famous people?” I asked.

“Well, probably you have heard of Diego Rivera, the muralist. Diego loved orchids. Teódulo collected for him and showed him how to take care of the plants. Teódulo was very particular about who he sold his plants to. If they didn’t know how to grow them he wouldn’t sell, because it is an easy thing to kill an orchid. The other person was Leon Trotsky. Trotsky adored cactus. He had a passion for them and after Stalin forced him into exile he had plenty of spare time to devote to his cactus collection.”

“It must have been a fairly short-lived hobby for Trotsky,” I said, “considering his brief stay in Mexico before being assassinated.”

“Yes. A brief, passionate interest,” Sandro said. “But this is really not such a bad thing in life, is it?”

Sandro described how Teódulo taught him many things, the first of which was how to make an old Aztec drink known as agave pulque. Teódulo told him that to the north of Mexico City there were many arid places, and in those places the Indians drank a lot of pulque. They drank it instead of water.

“It is slimy, acidic like buttermilk, slightly alcoholic, and it can be mixed with fruit,” Sandro explained. “The god of pulque is worshiped in that area and Teódulo told me all about it. We went there, we drank the pulque, and later he told me about orchids.”

Teódulo became Sandro’s mentor. The apprenticeship lasted for many years and it involved countless journeys into remote jungle areas to learn how different orchids grow in the wild. Teódulo was not the sort of plant collector who just took plants out of the jungle to sell in the market. He studied them, and from years of observation he understood the secrets of every orchid he collected. Teódulo also knew the behavior of the pollinating insects of the different orchids, as well as the exact conditions under which the plants would thrive.

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