The complete guide to orchid fraud tactics: you must read this before buying orchids

1. Fake silver lines: faked on the leaves of Cymbidium faberi (Hui Lan) or hard-leaved orchids. A blade is used to shave off the surface of the leaf veins so the vein ridges are exposed, which then form white lines; some also shave the leaf edges to fake silver edges.

2. Fake golden-edge orchids: yellow paint or a color-fading agent is applied to the leaf edges of ordinary orchids, applied very carefully, making it hard to tell true from false. Or leaf-variegated plants such as spider plants are cut and glued onto the pseudobulbs of ordinary orchids to fake golden edges, silver lines, or silver edges; such orchids wilt and die within a few months of being bought and planted, and on close inspection such orchids show traces of gluing.

3. Fake tiger-stripe plants: hydrogen peroxide is applied to the spots of the supposed tiger striping, and the color there turns into white-yellow patches, guaranteed not to turn green again. This kind of tiger striping is never as natural as real tiger striping. 4. Verbal deception: orchid swindlers are all very good at sizing people up and playing to their audience, with glib tongues, and they use accompanying photos to label various famous varieties such as Chun Lan, Lian Ban, and Chun Jian. They also pull out a pile of photos saying this is the photo of this clump in bloom. Without exception, none of these orchids have flower buds.

5. Fake strange flowers: the petals of ordinary flowers are cut off and glued together around an ordinary orchid to form chrysanthemum-petal flowers and double flowers. If orchid leaves are cut and glued on, they become strange leaves. Most such flowers are wilted, and the tongues of plain-tongued flowers are dull. Because flowers made by fakery lose their nutrient supply, they soon wilt.

6. Ruthless flower crushing: this trick is not a swindle but plain malice. They deceive people and are also jealous of others. They will always ask to take a look at the good orchid you just bought, and once it is in their hands they will give the pseudobulb or the base of a new shoot a vicious squeeze, with absolutely swift and concealed technique; I do not need to spell out the consequences, everyone understands.

7. Fake dwarf varieties: the large leaves of an ordinary orchid are cut off, leaving the short shoots, which are then treated with high concentrations of growth regulators such as paclobutrazol and uniconazole to fake a dwarf orchid. Paclobutrazol treatment can be seen from the roots: such roots are rigid and thick, growing horizontally, lacking the softness of normal roots, while the roots of genuine plants grow downward once they emerge, and the leaf flesh is unusually hard, lacking the normal glutinous quality of dwarf grasses like Daruma; uniconazole produces a smaller root system, but it also grows horizontally. In short, hormone-treated plants never look quite normal and easily develop wavy "dragon" ridges, and with a little careful examination they are not hard to spot.

8. Selling diseased plants: some diseased seedlings from Guangdong are sold (such as ringspot virus disease). The main targets are beginners; the prices are generally quite cheap, the quantity and variety are relatively large, and the plants have been treated with chemicals, so they generally do not show disease in a short time, but as soon as the orchid growing season arrives the disease breaks out immediately, ferociously, and the vast majority will wipe out the whole collection. Think about it: online selling prices are already relatively low, yet orchid swindlers buy their stock from Guangdong and sell it cheaper than local Guangdong sellers, so how do they make money?

9. Fake colored flowers: (1) Using the smallest syringe needle to inject dye from the column, the needle hole is fairly clear after the photo is enlarged, though harder to see on the actual plant. The way to tell is to observe the stamens with a magnifying glass; there is a needle hole on the column, and the red coloring on the outer petals or the tongue appears to have a water-soaked, sunken look. Or rub the flower with your hand so its sap runs out; if the sap is sticky or your whole hand is stained with bright color, it is a fake flower. (2) Recently South Korea's technology has advanced, and biological agents have been used to create many colored Cymbidium faberi flowers such as white plain and red plain, and there are also fakes among leaf-variegation "middle-translucent" types, and the colored flowers and the middle-translucent leaf variegation do not change color for two generations. How to tell: if it is a white flower they stress the white, if it is a red flower they stress the red, and the color is especially unnatural; among colored flowers, white flowers and red flowers do not have the same leaf color, and fake flowers cannot take this into account. When buying variegated plants you must look at the old shoots; the variegation of old plants differs in color from that of new plants, so be careful if everything is new shoots; middle-translucent plants are mostly upright, while fake middle-translucent plants mostly have broad leaves and many are curved and drooping. You should also look at leaf quality; white and yellow lack water sheen, and the flaw of middle-translucent types lies in the leaf stalk, which is generally not taken care of.

10. Stealing the dragon and swapping the phoenix: (1) Using a variety similar in leaf variegation and plant shape to swap out a variety you have already seen and settled on. (2) Using two or three plants of a traditional variety with flowers, and gluing around them grasses similar in leaf shape, so that at a glance the variety seems right, and whether you buy by divided plants or as a whole plant, you are the one who loses. (3) Using mature plants to pass off as traditional famous varieties; with Chun Lan it is very hard to judge the variety by leaves alone, and even the same variety shows large differences between strong and weak plants, and swindlers exploit this. They use treated plants with flower buds to deceive, and such flowers generally cannot open. Yet they sell at the price of a famous variety. (4) Putting the plants of traditional famous varieties into a natural environment so that their roots and leaves are damaged by wind and insects, making them look like wild-collected plants. When the flowers are about to bloom, they dig them up and sell them as newly collected new varieties, such as "Si Xi Die", which because of its great variation has fooled many expert orchid growers. And the price orchid swindlers get is ten times or even dozens of times that of traditional plants. (5) Using ordinary wild-collected plants to pass off as new fine-flowered varieties; they target orchid friends with only half an understanding of orchid growing, seize on these people's psychology, and lavish praise on your skill at selecting orchids. Then they show you some rather distinctive wild-collected orchids that are actually nothing at all, passing them off as He, Mei, Xian, Qi and so on; if your level is high you absolutely will not believe it, but if your level is average you will often be fooled, for the plants have been treated, and seeing the flowers will take many years, and the money spent will certainly not be small.

These plants are all treated by physical methods, and only collapse after three or four months, making you greatly doubt your own growing ability. You feel you have grown them poorly, the flowers cannot open, and the variety naturally cannot be identified, so you will not go looking for them either.

The so-called physical treatment of orchids is aimed at making it impossible for you to keep them alive, with no visible flaw in appearance, so that after your plants die you will buy this variety again.

1. Chemical solution method: dripping a suitable concentration of chemical solution on the orchid crown; with the concentration properly mixed, the time for the orchid plant to collapse can be controlled between 5 and 60 days.

2. Needle pricking method: (1) Direct needle pricking: using a fine needle to pierce from top to bottom through the entire orchid crown down to the roots at a place where the base of the central leaf cannot be seen. The orchid plant takes longer to collapse and it is hard to control, depending on the degree of tissue damage inside the crown; some can even heal and survive. (2) Chemical needle pricking: combining a prepared chemical solution with needle pricking, so that the central tissue inside the crown is slowly necrotized by the chemical, and the timing can be controlled very precisely, allowing the orchid plant to die at any point within three months.

The orchid market is a mix of good and bad, and there are very many orchid varieties, so orchid friends must themselves have a certain appreciation ability and have a general understanding of market prices, and buy as far as possible from orchid friends they know or from well-known orchid nurseries. I believe fraudsters should be pursued to the very end, exposed by every possible means and channel, and where the evidence is conclusive, the industry and commerce authorities and the judiciary should be brought in for necessary compensation claims. Leave them nowhere to hide and nothing to do.

Be careful to guard against someone using Huan Qiu He Ding to pass off as Lu Yun; the tips of the first and second leaves of a strong Lu Yun plant clearly take the shape of a spearhead (this is the key point of distinction), whereas Huan Qiu He Ding, no matter how strong the plant, has never shown this feature.