Dear Readers, I have been wanting to visit the Orchid Festival at Kew Gardens for many years, but somehow something always happened (the pandemic, a crisis at work, a crisis with the parents). This year, however, I finally made it! This year’s theme was ‘The Orchids of Madagascar’, and fair enough – the country has over 1,000 species of orchid (one in ten plants in Madagascar is an orchid). Of these species, 90% are endemic (found nowhere else) and Kew has been very active in working with Malagasy scientists to document and conserve what’s there.

I was also lucky enough to visit Madagascar about twenty years ago – I found it one of the most interesting, difficult and heart-breaking places that I’ve ever encountered.

The Festival is held in the Princess of Wales Conservatory (which hosts a variety of different zones, from desert to tropical forest), and we all queued up in the chilly wind for about half an hour before we got in. At least it wasn’t raining! And then people had their bags checked so we trickled in a bit at a time, which meant that it never felt overwhelmingly busy.

It’s fair to say that many of the orchids were not Madagascan, but there were some very unusual and attractive plants. Plus to entertain the young ‘uns (and the not-so-young ‘uns) there were various Madagascan animals dotted about, some obvious, some not.

I loved the cactuses in the desert zone.

And there was an elephant bird! This bird was only rendered extinct well after humans arrived in Madagascar (probably as late as the 13th century) and you can still buy elephant bird eggs in the local markets.

Then it was off into the tropical zone, with its pond and explosion of orchids. Sadly my camera lens steamed up and I didn’t notice for quite a while. Still, hopefully you get the idea.

There was a wickerwork Zebu  (a kind of local humped cow) standing in the shallows. I remember driving past a herd of these cattle in our jeep, and seeing the farmer cut the throat of one of the animals – what a visceral and unexpected shock that was! But we also saw farmers tenderly washing and grooming their cattle and their water buffalo. There are a variety of cultures in Madagascar, and it would take a lifetime to even begin to appreciate them.

The next part of the conservatory was full of chameleons – not real ones, sadly. Madagascar is home to over half of the world’s species of chameleon, from giants to tiny leaf chameleons that would fit on a thumb nail.

There were also some tiny orchids dangling from the ceiling.

Oh look, an aye-aye! These are nocturnal lemurs who use their long middle-fingernail to extract beetle larvae from dead wood. When we visited, one of them wandered over to our guide and tappity-tapped at the foot of his wellington boot. I wonder if s/he thought that the movement of his toes was a grub?

One minor aggravation, for me at least, was that it was very difficult to find any information on the individual orchid species. I have lots of pretty photos, but I have no idea which of these plants are Madagascan, or anything about their lifecycles, except that they involve all kinds of complex interactions with other species. Still, these are exquisite organisms, and here are some photos to prove it.

And oh, look – a sifaka (one of those lemurs that leaps across the ground or between the trees).

The last ‘scene’ was a mock-up of a research camp, complete with jeep and tent and some herbarium specimens.

Interestingly, the Madagascar Periwinkle is the plant featured here – this was a folk-remedy for diabetes for decades, but its active ingredient was found to be able to stop the rapid dividing of cells. This ingredient, vincristine, is used as a treatment for childhood leukaemia – originally it could only be extracted from the plant, but can now be synthesised. It just goes to show that we could be losing plants which would be of great value to humanity – this is not the only reason for saving them, as every species has both an intrinsic value and a place in its ecosystem, but it does give the situation an added poignancy.

And then we were thoroughly hungry, and so we went for lunch at The Original Maids of Honour, just five minutes along Kew Bridge Road. They do what looks like a wonderful Afternoon Tea (the coffee eclairs looked scrumptious) and their pies, pasties and quiches are all home-made. It was absolutely delicious, but Readers, if you are going to go I would definitely book – we got the last available table on a rainy Monday, goodness only knows what it’s like at the weekend! I love Kew Gardens but have always been a bit underwhelmed by their food offering, so this is a great alternative.