Japanese name: バニラ Scientific name:Vanilla planifolia
[Overview]
A climbing perennial. An epiphytic orchid.
The stem grows long like a vine, and is supported by attaching to other objects with roots produced at each node.
The leaves are simple, alternate at intervals of several nodes along the stem, elliptic, about 20 cm long, fleshy, and entire.
A raceme about 5 cm long in the leaf axils bears several flowers.
The flowers are about 6 cm across and yellowish green, with thick, fleshy petals.
The fruit is a cylindrical capsule about 15 cm long, and the seeds are exceptionally large for the orchid family, thick and lens-shaped, about 5 mm across.
[Uses]
After harvest, the fruit develops a sweet fragrance through repeated fermentation and drying.
It is used as a fragrance.
[Cultivation]
It prefers heat and humidity, and requires a minimum temperature of 15 °C or higher.
Except for avoiding direct sunlight in midsummer, give it strong sunlight.
It is grown by letting it twine around a tree fern post or similar, but it does not flower until it becomes quite a large plant.
