Yet the fact that there is a common idea proves that Orchidacae is a popular and well known family. With 25,000 species of these beautiful flowers growing throughout the world, it is nearly impossible that humans could not have taken notice. They have grown in popularity from the time of William George Spencer Cavendish, sixth Duke of Devonshire, who owned a greenhouse filled entirely with orchids that was sixty feet high and the size of a football field, to the present day, when they have become an ordinary houseplant and are used for such purposes as the extract of vanilla from Vanilla planifolia. Although orchids grow in many places other than the tropics, they can be said to have spread to Europe when, in 1818, William Cattley discovered the Cattleya lablata autumnalis used as packing in a shipment of plants from Brazil, and through the mid-1800 s, when forests were stripped of the plants in a collecting craze. Orchids have had a huge impact on humans and their societies throughout history as they grew and spread.
Orchids belong to the class of monocotyledons, which includes lilies, palms, grasses, and amaryllis.
They grow in either a monopodial or sympodial form. If the orchid is monopodial, the main stem continues to grow vertically. If it is sympodial, new stems or pseudobulbs develop in front of the orginal stem and the orchid develops horizontally. They can also be classified as terrestrial or epiphytic.