Eng Soon Teoh - Orchids as Aphrodisiac, Medicine or Food

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Dendrobium nobile flowering in April on a tree in Sikkim, India. Pseudobulbs of this beautiful, popular orchid are employed medicinally as shihu in China. Although the species is widely distributed, its existence in nature is now under threat because of over-collection from the forests of southern China and the adjacent countries. (Teoh Eng Soon 2019. All Rights Reserved.)

Orchids are more than pretty exotic flowers. For thousands of years, some orchid species have played an important role in traditional herbal medicine in China, India and Europe. Even today several hundred orchid species are employed medicinally to treat injuries and disease or as food and delicacies all over the world. Vanilla, a favourite flavour with the Aztecs and now ubiquitous in Western confectionary, is derived from an orchid fruit.

Recently, the modernization of China has wrought a paradigm shift in the development and practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Not only are new modalities being employed for diagnosis and treatment, scientists are scrutinizing ancient remedies at the molecular level to determine whether they actually contain useful compounds and, if they do, their modes of action. In the process, new potential uses are being discovered. Numerous compounds present in orchids act against viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa and worms. Other compounds are toxic to cancer cells, causing programmed cell death (apoptosis); depriving malignant cells of their blood supply; or preventing their spread. Some orchid phytochemicals protect against liver damage, brain damage and ultraviolet damage to skin; lower blood sugar; promote fetal lung maturation; and prevent osteoporosis. Every week, new information is appearing in scientific journals. However, most of the excitement is confined within the laboratory. Clinical trials are few and far between. They need to be properly designed and performed.

Globalization, rapid communication and a fast pace of life are rapidly eliminating distinctive cultures and creating homogenous stereotypic communities. Whether in cities or in tribal settlements, people no longer receive detailed knowledge of their past and sometimes they do not make an effort to look after and preserve natures bounty. Knowledge of ethnomedicine is fast disappearing. Thus, there is a need to discover and record all that was known in the past about medicinal orchid usage before orchids become mere toys for gardening hobbyists or flowers for decoration. I do not deny the importance of the latter, being a fancier of orchids myself, but we should always look beyond horticulture and attempt to realize every potential in the orchids. This transitional period when traditional practices meet science offers many opportunities to the scientist and to traditional healers.

Three Mediterranean terrestrial orchids with tubers that were touted as aphrodisiacs fpr nearly two millennia. Left: Anacamptis laxiflora. From: Schultze M, Die Orchidaceen Deutschlands, Deutsch-Oesterreichs und der Schweiz , t. 18 (1894). Right: Anacamptis morio [as Orchis morio , Fig. A]; and Dactylorhiza maculata [as Orchis maculata, Fig. B]. From: Thome OW, Flora von Duetschland Osterreich und der Schweiz, Tafein, vol. 1: t.142 (1885)

Five groups of herbal orchids that are of the greatest economic importance and with the longest recorded history of usage are individually described in separate chapters to demonstrate how studies should be conducted on the remaining 800 medicinal orchid species. These five items are Tianma, Shihu, Baiji, Salep and Vanilla.

Whereas an effort is made to provide an overview of medicinal orchids throughout the world, more comprehensive information about such usage in Meso and South America might only be available from Spanish and Portuguese sources which are not accessible to the author. Other than South Africa, tribal usage in many parts of that continent has not been properly studied and records of usage in much of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia are not as extensive as those of continental Asia. The approximately 200 medicinal orchid species with localized provincial usage in China are not discussed in this book. Interested readers may refer to my Medicinal Orchids of Asia (Springer 2016) where they are individually described in detail.

I made an exception with Xizang Province (Tibet) because bcud len is unique in its original application by hermits striving for spiritual advancement and survival while dwelling in remote caves. I am grateful to Charles Oliphant, PhD, for introducing me to this secret Tibetan practice of bcud len and the opportunity to read his thesis which revealed another unique aspect of medicinal orchid usage. This is discussed in Chap..

Grateful thanks are due to Henry Oakeley, MD, FRCP, for valuable advice on my first few chapters and his photographs of European orchid species; Professor Ong Siew Chey, MD, Wu Dongyun, MD, Janet Loh and Sohjardto Wibowo, MD, for assistance with the translations of Chinese and Dutch texts; Joseph Arditti, PhD, Tan Wee Kiat, PhD, Tim Yam, PhD, Hew Choy Sin, PhD, and Chang Yoon Ching, PhD, and numerous research scientists whose papers we have quoted for making available resource materials; and also the library staff of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, in particular Christina Loh and Zakiah bte Agil. I also wish to thank Bhakta Bahadur Raskoti, PhD, and Professor Lokesh Shakya and Professor S.K. Ghimire for supplying me with photographs of some Nepali medicinal orchids; Professor Luo Yibo, PhD, for photos of cultivation and conservation of