The History of Neofinetia Falcata

The Japanese name fūran, 風蘭, literally means “wind orchid.” It refers broadly to Neofinetia falcata—today botanically accepted by Kew as Vanda falcata—an epiphytic orchid native to Japan, Korea, parts of China, and the Ryukyu/Nansei islands. The species was known to Western botany by the late 18th century; Thunberg published it as Orchis falcata in 1784, and the name Neofinetia falcata was established in 1925.

But in Japan, long before botanists worried about genera, the plant had acquired another identity.

Fūran was the plant in nature—the wind orchid. Fūkiran, 富貴蘭, was what happened when people began selecting extraordinary fūran and treating them as living works of art. The characters 富貴 carry the sense of wealth, rank, nobility or prosperity, so fūkiran is usually translated as “rich and noble orchid” or “noble orchid.” The American Orchid Society describes ordinary forms as fūran and the exceptional, highly selected cultivated forms as fūkiran. That distinction is central to the whole story.

During the Edo period, 1603–1868, selected forms became prestige plants among the elite, particularly samurai and daimyō circles. The historical tradition surrounding them became so elaborate that very fine plants could function as status objects and valuable gifts. Accounts preserved in modern orchid literature describe prized plants being screened from visitors and viewers covering their mouths with paper so that their breath would not touch them. Some stories say an exceptional plant presented to a lord could bring substantial favor or even land. (American Orchid Society)

That is where “samurai orchid” comes from. But I would not imagine a samurai simply admiring a pretty white flower. The remarkable thing is that the flower was often not the principal object of connoisseurship.

Japanese collectors began looking at extremely subtle vegetative characters:

• the curvature and posture of the leaves;
• variegation patterns;
• leaf texture;
• the shape of the tsuke, where the leaf joins the stem;
• pigmentation at the leaf base;
• root-tip color—green, brownish, pink, even ruby;
• dwarfism or unusual proportions;
• and eventually the total harmony of the plant, moss mound and pot.

So a fūkiran collector was looking at the plant almost the way one might look at a bonsai. A perfectly ordinary white-flowered plant could be less prized than another specimen with an extraordinary leaf attachment, a rare variegation, or ruby root tips.

And this is why my plant is interesting even when it has no flowers.

The traditional Japanese mounting became part of the aesthetic object as well. The orchid is often raised on a carefully formed mound of sphagnum with a hollow center so that air reaches the roots, and the mound sits in a specialized ornamental pot. Fine pots may be three-footed, hand-painted and individually signed. Plant, root architecture, moss and vessel are therefore presented as a composition rather than merely as horticulture.

There is also an extraordinary institutional continuity. Japanese fūkiran societies maintain a Meikan, effectively a formal chart of recognized cultivated varieties. Thousands of forms of falcata have been described, but only a much smaller number are formally recognized as fūkiran of particular distinction. Recognition historically depended on stable and distinctive characteristics rather than simply giving every seedling a cultivar name. (American Orchid Society)

And that gives us an important nuance concerning my own white Neofinetia.

A normal green-leaved, white-flowered Neofinetia falcata is properly a fūran—the wind orchid. It does not automatically become fūkiran merely because it is a Neofinetia. Traditionally, fūkiran is the more selective cultural category, reserved for recognized or exceptional cultivated forms.

In other words: Every fūkiran begins as a fūran, but not every fūran is a fūkiran.

And I think fūran is actually a magnificent name. Imagine where its ancestors lived: attached to trunks and branches rather than rooted in soil, exposed to moving humid air, rain, seasonal temperature changes and bright filtered light. The long white flowers with their nectar spurs release their strong fragrance into that moving summer air. The AOS describes the scent variously as reminiscent of vanilla, honeysuckle or orange blossom. (American Orchid Society)

So the “wind” in wind orchid is not merely poetic. It describes something fundamental about the ecology and appearance of the plant.

And there is another aspect I think you will appreciate: this whole tradition is about attention. Someone noticed that one wild plant's leaves curved slightly differently. Someone noticed that another produced a ruby-colored root tip. Someone propagated it rather than allowing that variation to disappear. Generations later, those tiny biological differences had acquired names, pedigrees and aesthetic classifications.

It is essentially centuries of human observation acting upon natural mutation and variation.

That, much more than the romantic samurai stories, is what makes fūran culture fascinating to me.

My little white orchid is therefore sitting on the terrace carrying two histories simultaneously: the evolutionary history of an East Asian epiphyte and roughly four centuries of extraordinarily meticulous Japanese horticultural observation.

There really are repeated stories that samurai carried Neofinetia with them while traveling, and some later accounts even say they carried them into battle. One orchid-history source says feudal lords took their prized plants with them on periodic journeys to Edo. (Orchids)

I have had for many days a mental image of a rōnin-like, rough traveling samurai, wrapped in a large outer garment, protecting a tiny orchid against his bodywithin a haori—a jacket worn over the kimono.

Historical evidence shows that Neofinetia falcata became associated with elite cultivation during the Edo period and that prized plants accompanied owners during travel. Later tradition embellished this into the evocative image of the samurai carrying his wind orchid with him—even into battle.

That is how I imagine my Neofinetia Falcata Furan parentage, my little one ancestors in the far Japan.