The flower is second to poinsettias in popularity.

WASHINGTON (AP) – When Isabella Vilbat-Woodcox describes orchids, it’s as if she were under a spell, entranced by their color, shape, scent. To her, each orchid is a breathtaking work of art.

“If you look at them, they’re just mesmerizing,” said Vilbat-Woodcox, owner of Beautiful Orchids, a shop in San Francisco. “It’s almost like looking at a bird flying.”

The flowers come in many colors – stunning yellow, deep red, soft pink or violet. The bloom of some species is as small as a grain of rice; other species have large, ruffled blossoms that look like human faces. Their scents are distinct. One, the Sherry Baby orchid, even smells like chocolate.

Vilbat-Woodcox is one of thousands of people in love with orchids, a flower that has gained in popularity over the last decade. It now is No. 2 behind the poinsettia, a potted flower that spruces up store windows and displays during the December holiday season.

Agriculture Department figures show orchid sales last year totaled $106 million, a 66 percent increase from 1997.

Growth in poinsettias has been slower and more incremental – partly because orchids are taking over some of the poinsettia market, said Robert Griesbach, a geneticist with the Agriculture Department’s National Arboretum. Poinsettia sales last year totaled $247 million, an 11 percent increase since 1997.

Griesbach attributes the rising popularity of the orchid to its resilience.

“Your average potted plant lasts about two weeks,” he said. But orchids “will last three to four months with almost no light and no water. It takes 10 times more abuse. That’s one of the reasons that orchids are becoming more popular in the home – not because people are growing them, but they’re decorator plants.”

Vilbat-Woodcox said she recently supplied orchids for a magazine photo shoot of a million-dollar home in San Francisco, substituting them for tulips and roses that had been displayed throughout the house.

The homeowner, whom Vilbat-Woodcox would not name, decided to buy the orchids after he saw them. “That’s how intoxicating they are,” she said.

Orchids in the United States are grown mostly in California, Florida and Hawaii. Leading foreign exporters include the Netherlands, Taiwan and Thailand.

More than 30,000 species are found throughout the world, but some are endangered, like the eastern prairie fringed orchid (Platanthera leucophaea). The blossoms resemble a woman wearing a fringed skirt with hands that look as if they’re made of feathers.

These and all other orchids are characterized by a unique composition of three inner petals, three outer petals – or sepals – and a labellum, a lower petal that looks like a lip.

One of the most common genuses of orchid sold in stores is the Phalaenopsis, or moth orchid. The blossoms resemble starfish. Last year, U.S. stores and wholesalers sold $818,000 in various species of moth orchids, according to the Agriculture Department.

“People are really seeing that as they’re being exposed to different types of orchids, the Phalaenopsis orchid is becoming increasingly popular,” said Jennifer Sparks, a spokeswoman for the Society of American Florists. “You see a lot of those in the home decorating stores. They’re beautiful. They’re very elegant.”

With $6.6 million in sales, the No. 1 selling genus of potted orchids last year in the United States was the Dendrobium. Many species and hybrids of Dendrobium have slender outer and inner petals.

Orchid collecting is a passion for many because of the flowers’ exotic beauty and history. Scientists and hobbyists have been experimenting with creating new hybrids for centuries, said Vilbat-Woodcox, and rare wild orchids are highly valued.

“The Orchid Thief,” a book by Susan Orlean that led to last year’s film “Adaptation,” revealed that a collector’s addiction to the flowers can become an obsession. Some orchid collectors are willing to steal or hunt rare orchids anywhere in the world to add them to their own collections or to breed and sell them.

Orlean said her book certainly drew more attention to orchids. “So many people said to me, ‘Boy, as soon as I read your book I went out and bought an orchid.’ I never expected that. I was writing about a subculture that really interests me.”

Vilbat-Woodcox said it is easy to get hooked on the flowers.

“You’re looking at centuries of pollination, of crossbreeding, of hunting. And the history – if you know the name and where they’re from – it adds to their mysteriousness.”

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On the Net:

USDA National Arboretum: http://www.usna.usda.gov/

USDA Floriculture Sales: http://www.usda.gov/nass/

American Orchid Society: http://www.orchidweb.org

AP-ES-07-18-03 1852EDT