Orchids root physics professor Robbins in reality

Professor Mark Robbins went to Brazil looking to research semiconductors. Instead, he came back with what he describes as a "dangerous habit." Robbins began collecting orchids 16 years ago, and his affair with the flowering plants has only grown.

"There was a period around '91-'92 when my collection doubled every six months, he said. "When it hit 200, I knew it was an addictive habit."

As graceful orchid blossoms reach toward the window of his office, and a bouquet of blue ribbons are piled together on the wall, this physics professor has clearly taken orchids from a hobby to a passion.

Last Thursday in a small church hall, an audience of 50 listened attentively to Robbins' orchid growing suggestions. The presentation, covering everything from humidity to growing under fluorescent bulbs, was, according to local grower Helen Huntington, "One of the best I have ever heard."

Chuckles and nods rippled through the audience as Robbins relayed his personal anecdotes and growing philosophies. "I take a Darwinian approach to growing. If it doesn't survive, then I shouldn't be growing it," he said.

The beige meeting hall was flanked by tables awash with the colorful flowering plants, a good percentage of which were Robbins' creations or prizewinners. In hues of red, pink, yellow or even green, from miniature species with blooms no larger than a watermelon seed, to upward twisting palm-sized sculptural flowers, Robbins grows a diverse number of the species Orchidae. With several local show awards and two American Orchid Society decorations, Robbins has cemented his reputation as a grower in the Maryland orchid community.

"I have known Mark for 10 or 12 years and I've never known him to do anything that wasn't superlative," said local orchid grower Barry Woolf of Falston, Md.

In addition to growing hundreds of orchids from the basement of his home, Robbins' hands have created new types of orchid. The small, pink veined flower he displayed on the desktop of his computer was the result of a scientific crossbreeding process, he said. The first step to producing a new plant begins with extracting an orchid seed from the plant's fungus, placing it in an agar dish, and cultivating it until growth, a process not too different from many students' regular lab work, he said.

"Someone with skills in growing cultures in lab might find it fun to try orchids instead. Although, I don't know if their thesis advisor would object."

After experimenting with crossbreeding, his attempts have yielded him a blooming flower in an unusually rapid five years, earning him an Award of Merit from the American Orchid Society.

"I was incredibly lucky that I got one to bloom," he said. "It's not at all normal." Named after his second daughter, the orchid Papheopedlum Rose Tapestry, "Catherine," joins a "Thomas" variety he created in 1987, the second plant to be named after his children framed on the wall above his desk. "I wonder if I'll get [my children] to water them someday," he said.

While orchids may be best known for the large purple or white flowers on the wrists of prom queens everywhere, Robbins' experiments with the plants are only representative of a larger nationwide increase in orchid growing. He estimates there were a million square feet of growing area in New York City and New Jersey alone dedicated to the production of these formal flowers, whereas in the past 20 years, orchids have become more mainstream, or even trendy. As evident in the movie Adaptation, there is even a small cult of an orchid community.

While orchids have become an obsession primarily in the orchids' natural habit of southern Florida (and home of the American Orchid Society), Robbins says the trend has expanded nationwide, thanks to advances in breeding technology. "Cloning has made better quality orchids for everyone," he said, pointing to the Phaelenopsis or "moth orchids" on the growing table behind his desk. These broad leaved plants with round, full blooms were some of the more difficult plants to obtain in the past, Robbins said, but with cloning, Phaelenopsis orchids are the most popular plants on the market.

But when he is not immersed in the orchid jungle of his office or basement, Robbins is working on the "pulling apart of proteins," at Hopkins physics labs. Robbins was the third professor to join the University's initiative in Condensed Matter Physics in 1986.

With experience from Exxon's corporate research lab, the Newton, Mass. native says he is grounded in "nontraditional physics." It is precisely the nature of his specialty that drives his interest in orchid growing.

"For me, my work is theoretical, it's very abstract," Robbins said. "[Orchid growing] gives me my physical contact with reality."

For students seeking to make such a contact and develop their green thumb, Robbins wants to emphasize the compatibility of orchid growing with student life. Able to be grown in a dorm window and with flowers lasting from 3-6 months, orchids could grace the windowsills of college students everywhere. Even if Hopkins students opt not to let these plants become a passion, it's clear that orchids can be much more than just a prom corsage.