{"id":54934,"date":"2017-03-09T10:56:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T15:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nybg.org\/plant-talk\/?p=54934"},"modified":"2017-03-09T10:57:33","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T15:57:33","slug":"whats-in-a-name-paphs-cyps-and-phrags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/2017\/03\/history\/whats-in-a-name-paphs-cyps-and-phrags\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in a Name? Paphs, Cyps, and Phrags"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katherine Wagner-Reiss has a Certificate in Botany from The New York Botanical Garden<\/a> and has been a tour guide at NYBG for the past two years.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Photo<\/a>The Orchid Show: Thailand<\/a><\/em> features a genus of lady\u2019s slipper orchids native to Eastern Asia known as Paphiopedilum<\/em>. The Latin name has a beautiful background story relating to the birth of Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty, and fertility.<\/p>\n

According to ancient Greek myth, Aphrodite was born out of the sea, and landed at the site of Paphos on the island of Cyprus. A great temple was built in her honor at Paphos (and ruins remain there today). This orchid\u2019s shape and beauty would have made it a suitable slipper for the goddess of love; hence it was named Paphiopedilum <\/em>(Paphio-<\/em> for the city of Paphos, –pedilum<\/em> from the Ancient Greek word pedilon<\/em>, meaning slipper).<\/p>\n

Cypripedium<\/em> is a genus of lady’s slipper orchid native to most of the Northern Hemisphere, and it also happens to have a name inspired by the popular Aphrodite (Cypri<\/em>– because Aphrodite was the Lady of Cyprus). Another common genus of lady’s slipper orchid, native to Mexico and South America, has a much more scientifically derived Latin name: Phragmipedium<\/em> (Phragma<\/em> is Greek for “division,” i.e. the ovary is divided into three).
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\n\"Photo<\/a>You may also hear these flowers referred to as Venus\u2019 slippers, as Venus is the Roman counterpart to the Greek goddess Aphrodite.<\/p>\n

Beautiful as these names are, they can trip the tongue, and so they are abbreviated in the orchid trade as Paphs, Cyps, and Phrags.<\/p>\n

One of my personal favorite moments is to see the various species of Cypripedium<\/em> emerging in the spring, after a cold New York winter, displaying their ephemeral, Aphrodite-like beauty in the Native Plant Garden. But you can find lady\u2019s slipper orchids from each genus blooming indoors at NYBG year-round\u2014and, of course, throughout the Orchid Show<\/em>, running through April 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Orchid names are often fanciful and elegant, and in some cases they’re home to myths and legends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132435,"featured_media":54938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1170],"tags":[3284,5223,4340,569],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Paphiopedilum-hybrids-05.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ph0lU-ei2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54934"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54934"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54944,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54934\/revisions\/54944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}