Do Orchids Have Seeds? A Detailed Guide to Orchid Planting Methods
Some flower enthusiasts ask whether orchids have seeds, and others ask how to sow orchid seeds, and so on. Orchids do have seeds. When an orchid blooms, if it is pollinated, it may form a seed pod. This article includes pictures of orchid seeds; a single seed pod contains hundreds of thousands of seeds.
Since orchids do have seeds, then how do you sow orchid seeds? Unfortunately, this editor does not know how - really does not know how.
As things stand now, for ordinary orchid growers the probability of successfully sowing orchid seeds is almost 0. This is not meant to pour cold water on anyone; it is simply the current reality. Those who can successfully propagate orchids from seed are mostly doing scientific seedling cultivation in laboratories.
As for how ordinary orchid growers handle orchid seeds, the main approaches are to scatter them on the vegetation of the mother plant and let nature take its course, or to throw them away.
Why is it like this? Because orchid seeds have no endosperm and carry no nutritional reserve of their own, they need symbiotic fungi to germinate. They need the orchid mycorrhiza of the mother plant - that is, the method mentioned above of scattering them on the vegetation of the mother plant - but the germination rate is extremely low.
Of course, some experts say that you can scatter orchid seeds in the mountains, in yellow oak forests (also called oriental white oak or oak trees). It is best to scrape away the surface layer of fallen leaves; if there are white hyphae underneath, scattering the seeds there will give a somewhat higher seedling emergence rate. This editor has not tried it, but flower enthusiasts who have the conditions can give it a try.
To sum up, orchids do have seeds, but sowing them is extremely difficult, and for ordinary flower enthusiasts the success rate is almost 0. So if your own orchid forms a seed pod, it is fine to try it yourself just for fun, but there is no need to spend money buying seeds.