How to buy an orchid at the grocery store

It's winter in the northern hemisphere and Phalaenopsis orchids are literally everywhere. The elegant moth orchid can now be found not only near the register at most garden centres, but also at your local greengrocer, favourite supermarket, and the houseplant section of many large department stores. The single best place to buy an orchid is, of course, from a local orchid nursery. Such orchids are fresh and raised under expert care. Plus, it's always a good idea to support the local hobbyists: they are often talented breeders in their own right, and make exciting and exclusive new crosses available to the community. However, sometimes those sexy Phalaenopsis at the store can be so tempting that you almost don't realize you've got one propped between the corn flakes and fat-free yoghurt, until you're unpacking your trolley at the conveyor belt.

I am not a total orchid snob; those store-bought plants can be rewarding. Indeed, most of them originate from giant nurseries in such places as Taiwan and Florida, where they are bred to be appealing and raised to be vigorous. Problems arise when the plants are delivered to the point of sale - supermarkets are not the best of growing environments, and store attendants tend to give the orchids the same treatment as conventional houseplants. How often have neighbours complained of the mysterious and untimely demise of their latest acquisition, mere weeks after purchase! Well, fret no more, folks! The Electric Orchid Hunter is happy to provide some essential buying tips you should know before succumbing to orchid fever in the produce aisle.

1. Buy your orchids as fresh as possible. The ideal would be to get them as soon as they are unpacked, but it is seldom possible to gauge in advance when the next delivery will arrive in the store. The dry supermarket atmosphere can severely shorten the life span of the flowers, and cause unopened buds to abort. Flowers should be waxy, not papery, and buds should be swollen and unwrinkled.
2. Check for any instore damage. This includes cracked leaves, snapped aerial roots, bruised flower spikes and torn petals. 
3. Make sure the plant is in prime health. Leaves should be mid to dark green, not yellow, firm and slightly succulent. Look in between the leaves at the crown of the plant - if this is damaged in any way, a Phalaenopsis will usually be unable to recover and will eventually just fade away. Most commercially grown orchids are sold in clear plastic pots to allow the green aerial roots to grow into the medium. These are sometimes slipped inside more aesthetically pleasing clay pots - take out the plastic pot and inspect the roots for healthy growing tips.
4. Consider the type and condition of the growing medium. Don't buy anything slick with algae or with little ferns sprouting in it. Avoid plants struggling in mushy medium that has completely broken down - you don't want to have to repot your purchase as soon as you get it home. Consider what you're comfortable with: are these orchids planted in bark, or sphagnum moss? Moss holds onto moisture for longer, but bark can be more forgiving of mistakes. Remember that orchid roots need air in addition to water.
5. Look for a bargain. Sometimes resellers will discount Phalaenopsis once the flowers are spent. It's pretty much a lucky dip at this stage; you won't know whether you've got a large white or a dainty pink candy stripe until you get it to flower again. If the leaves have some red pigmentation at the bases or underneath, that's sometimes an indication of darker-coloured flowers. Unfortunately, commercial varieties are almost never shipped with name tags, and if they are, these rarely provide a clue to the colours you can expect. Bargain bin anonymous orchids might be worthwhile if the plants are still vigorous. Avoid orchids that are marked down because they are obviously on the brink of death.
6. Go for quality, not quantity. A plant with flowers of good shape and substance and with bold colours will be more rewarding at subsequent flowerings than one that has a few more blooms but the flowers of which are insipid or of poor shape. Perhaps I am an orchid snob, after all.

Let's prevent further disillusionment and unwitting cruelty to houseplants. Two final pieces of easy advice that will help you on the road to success with your new moth orchid:

• If you're unsure of whether your orchid is getting sufficient light, that means you should move it to a brighter location. 
• If you're unsure of whether to water it, that means you should wait another day before you do so. 
  

Photography credits: potted Phalaenopsis by Thomas Tamayo; dead Phalaenopsis by Kristin; helathy Phalaenopsis roots by Andrea K. Please visit the photostreams of these Flickr users for more flights of photographic fancy.

Introducing (E&E)² zen: electric orchids

Get your daily dose of links and images exploring our world by subscribing to the RSS feed at my new tumblelog electric orchids. Easily digestible tidbits perfect for tea time or a lunch break!

Naturally, this blog will still be the place to read those really in-depth features you've come to expect. Think of (E&E)² as the main digital garden, and electric orchids as a sunny windowsill!

Deceptive petals: 7 orchid mimics

Like the Genovese and the Gambino, the Orchidaceae are an intimidating family. With about 25,000 species, it's also the largest family of flowering plants. This does not make it any easier to identify a member, however. So let me ask you: how do you know when a flower is an orchid? Most people will probably answer, 'you can tell by the differently coloured lip'. This would be a mistake. Many plants with brightly coloured lips aren't orchids at all. Many others just have a gestalt that screams 'orchid' in hot pink tones, but you'd be wrong again. Botany is sometimes confusing. Let's take a look at a few examples of flowers that seem to mimic those of the orchids.

Bauhinia blakeana [Fabaceae - the Legume family]. It's easy to see why this is called the Hong Kong orchid tree, for the resemblance to an orchid blossom is rather striking. In 1880, Sir Henry Blake - then British Governor of Hong Kong and a keen botanist - discovered the plant growing near the ruins of a building on the shore of Pok Fu Lam. It has since become the floral emblem of Hong Kong. A popular tree for highway medians and parking lots in hot cities, it's large heart-shaped leaves make it attractive even when out-of-bloom.

Alpinia zerumbet [Zingiberaceae - the Ginger family]. Many members of this gorgeous plant family produce flowers that appear orchid-like, complete with glowing lips in the correct, lowermost orientation. Unlike orchid flowers, those of ginger do not possess a column, the central structure formed from the fusion of male and female parts. Shell ginger is a good example. This Chinese evergreen rapidly forms large clumps of lush tropical foliage when grown in frost-free areas with partial shade.

Tacca chantrieri [Dioscoreaceae - the Yam family]. After seeing the diverse array of black orchids out there, it is tempting to classify this sinister thing as an orchid. The bat flower, as it is affectionately known, actually belongs to the plant family that includes yams and other herbaceous vines. What appears to be large, darkly coloured petals are in fact involucral bracts, and not floral structures at all, just like the festive red 'petals' of the poinsettia. The real flowers are the cup-shaped structures within, surrounded by distinctive whiskers. If you can grow Phalaenopsis orchids really well, this Malaysian terrestrial should be well-suited to your conditions: it likes shade, high humidity and good air circulation.

Zingiber spectabile [Zingiberaceae - the Ginger family]. Another ginger species, the beehive ginger should not be confused with the related Z. officinale, the beloved culinary ginger. The plants grow quite tall, with the inflorescences typically carried beneath the attractive foliage. The beehive structure of the flowerhead is - once again - formed from colourful bracts, with the orchid-like flowers themselves appearing from between these. Gardeners and florists have many varieties to choose from, with flowerheads in orange, pink, yellow, red and several bicoloured combinations.

Strongylodon macrobotrys [Fabaceae - the Legume family]. The jade vine produces pendant clusters of totally unique aquamarine flowers. Once you've walked under a pergola festooned with these, the watery blooms of a wisteria seem positively wistful by comparison. It's not only the Orchidaceae that produce flowers of unusual colour, it seems. The jade vine hails from the Philippines, that trove of botanical marvels, where its blooms are visited by rainforest bats. It was first collected in 1854 on Mount Makiling on the island of Luzon by botanists of the U.S. Wilkes Exploring Expedition. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is now exceedingly rare in the wild and faces threat from deforestation.

Catalpa speciosa [Bignoniaceae - the Jacaranda family]. Just as orchids are not confined to the tropics, so orchid mimics can be found in virtually every environment. The Northern catalpa is a deciduous ornamental tree from the United States, orginally found along the Mississippi River basin, but now naturalized throughout much of the Midwest and considered invasive in places. It is known by several names in the vernacular, cigar tree and Indian bean being the most common, refering to the long, slender pods formed in mid-summer after flowering. The showy flowers bring to mind those of a unifoliate Cattleya, being large, white, ruffled and with distinct streaks of colour toward the interior.

Elettaria cardamomum [Zingiberaceae - the Ginger family]. Cardamom is a giant among gingers, growing to a height of almost 4 m. By contrast, the inflorescences are minute and held close to the ground, bearing several small blossoms. It grows wild in moist forests of the Western Ghats on India's Malabar Coast. An expensive spice, cardamom needs to be hand-picked daily at the moment of perfect ripeness. Few gourmands realize that the cardamom they praise so highly for the beauty of its aromatic fragrance has equally beautiful flowers. These blossoms are truly deserving of the moniker 'orchid-like'.

As we have seen, pretty petals do not an orchid make. So what is an orchid, and what isn't? This question can be answered most decisively by genetics. Simply put, an orchid is any member of the family Orchidaceae. Like the New York crime families, it's an exclusive club; they don't allow just anyone in and it doesn't matter if you look the part. However, in lieu of having a full-fledged genetic fingerprinting lab at your disposal the next time you're poking around your favourite nursery, remember that orchids usually exhibit these characteristics:
∙ a prominent lip (labellum) different from the other petals and sepals
∙ resupinate flowers twisted through 180°, leaving the lip lowermost
∙ pollen formed into sticky masses called pollinia
∙ a column (gynostemium) composed of both style and stamen
∙ fruit in the form of dehiscent capsules
∙ very small, almost dust-like seed
∙ close associations with mycorrhizal fungi
And then remember that there are exceptions to almost all those characteristics. Good luck...


Photography credits: Bauhinia blakeana © Christoph Diewald; Alpinia zerumbet © Avelino Maestas; Tacca chantrieri © Julia; Zingiber spectabile © Tony; Strongylodon macrobotrys © David Midgley; Catalpa speciosa © Cindy Ware; Elettaria cardamomum © Gopu P. Please visit these exceptional Flickr users for more floral excellence.

Banquet of the bizarre

A Saturday morning is perfect for wandering the stalls of your local farmer's market. Not only is it a great place to pick up fresh produce on the cheap, but it is often also a place where nutrition turns exotic. Markets, grocers and fruit 'n vegetable stalls are infinitely fascinating to me; there are always new varieties of old favourites and by now you've sussed that I'm a sucker for variations on a theme. There are often strange and wonderful new things that entice me: weird fruit from the tropics, or sometimes from someone's backyard; strange vegetable shapes that the Korean lady assures me you cook "like potato". The world is too big and life is too short to bore yourself with green beans and Golden Delicious apples. We should indulge in the variety of tastes and textures that sprout from the Earth (except for okra - that stuff's wholly inedible). So let me unpack my electronic brown paper bag onto my digital countertop here, and I'll share with you some of the virtual veg I scored at the Cyberfarms Cybermarket this morning. Be a love and put the kettle on, will you?

Romanesco Broccoli [Brassica oleracea var. botrytis]. Isn't this gorgeous? It's the mathematician's favourite vegetable, Romanesco broccoli. Which is technically classified as a type of cauliflower, not broccoli. Something to do with the maturity of the developing flowers, apparently. Cruciferous systematics aside, isn't it just the coolest thing? It has an alien symmetry. The whorls of florets have a fractal nature. Some people find it too pretty to eat. I don't: it's delicious simply steamed whole and tossed in butter with some pine nuts and crushed green peppercorns.

Tamarillo [Cyphomandra betacea]. Hailing from the forests of the Andes and now found in gardens everywhere, the tangy tamarillo is a delectable beast. Bursting with colour and zip, I used to eat these straight off the tree. Just don't try the bitter skin; the easiest way is to halve it and spoon the refreshing pulp within. Gorgeous with ice cream, they also make fine chutneys, jellies, jams and compotes. The best thing about the tamarillo is that you can get a giant fruit-bearing tree in as little as two years from seed. This explains why tamarillo seeds are such popular fodder in gardener trades, but also why the trees tend to be rather tender, with shallow root systems. Protect them from frost and strong wind and you too can have juicy freshness straight from the garden.

Water caltrop [Trapa bicornis]. Depending on your frame of reference, it resembles a steer skull charred by a brushfire, or the Baron of Hell from the Doom universe. The water caltrop is the seed of an aquatic plant, which grows with its roots anchored in the mud of lakes or slow-moving rivers. It was cultivated in China for thousands of years as an edible crop, and has recently regained prominence on the international food markets. They need to be cooked in order to be edible, and can then be used in an analogous way to the (unrelated) Chinese water chestnut. Water caltrops feature in several Asian dishes and I shall search them out at the Asian markets in Denver, although they do look rather intimidating, I must admit!

Horned melon [Cucumis metuliferus]. Hello, what's this? In essence, the horned melon is a cucumber gone psycho. Slice it open to reveal the green gelatinous inside, filled with seeds resembling those annoying underdeveloped white ones found in watermelons. Those who can overcome their fear of pips are rewarded with a refreshing taste somewhere between passion fruit, lemons and, well... cucumber. These beautiful and bizarre cucurbits grow in the red soil of the Kalahari desert and so represent one of the few commercial fruits - along with the watermelon - to have their origin in southern Africa. They'll make a colourful and surprising addition to any fruit salad, especially when combined with the white flesh and pink skin of the fabled dragonfruit, the pitaya.

Crosne [Stachys affinis]. Another Chinese introduction, and a member of the Mint family, no less. These made their way to France in 1882 and were long cultivated in the area of Crosne, whence the name. Crosnes are also known as knotroot because of these small, ridged tubers. They are kind of difficult to clean (a potato brush works best) and have therefore proved not to be very popular. However, they are very versatile and can be employed in roasts, or to add a nutty crunch to salads. Crosnes can be stir-fried in olive oil, then sprinkled with parsley and drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette as a dish on their own.

Mangosteen [Garcinia mangostana]. The single most astounding fruit I ever had the privilege to taste. I found these at the famous Mercat de la Boqueria in Barcelona, and couldn't resist purchasing a couple. Dubbed "the queen of tropical fruit" by the American explorer David Fairchild in 1903, the dark, sexy rind full of tannins hides virginal white segments, resembling those of the orange. The biggest segments contain one seed each. They are originally from the Malay archipelago and historically did not travel well. However, mangosteens have been popping up on the dessert menus of fancy restaurants in North America, imported from Hawaii or Puerto Rico. Lucky foodies in big cities might even find them at the fresh food markets now, where they typically retail for about $10 apiece. And what did it taste like, I hear you ask? A combination of muscadel grapes, muskmelon, lychees, vanilla ice cream, raspberries, yellow cling peaches and somehow none of those things. In short, it tasted like mangosteen.

Tell me about the strange fruits and vegetables you've eaten, grown or fondled in some exotic marketplace. Links to pictures are welcome. More tea?

Photography credits: Romanesco broccoli © rattyfied; tamarillo © evag29; water caltrop © Exif; horned melon © Nadia McIlhany; crosne © @rgs; mangosteen © sasithorn_s. Please visit these talented Flickr users for more exotic produce.

Poll results

Welcome to the digital garden. Thank you to all who voted in the 80th post commemorative poll; the results are in. Taking third place with a mere 15% of the vote is the post about the spicy molecule zingerone. Although the post about collecting 1st edition books is still statistically the most popular with casual visitors to (E&E)², it only managed to attain second place, with 23% of the vote. The surprise winner, as voted for in the poll (and with a massive 31% of the vote), is the post entitled We're one, but we're not the same, dealing with the intimate subject of confession through song lyrics. Read it here. I must admit that this was an unexpected result. You guys seem to have very particular taste!

I hope you like the new version of (E&E)². A big thank you to the supertalented Dalyn from Bruiser Design for the wonderful new header image. Thank you all for reading and commenting. I wish to share much more of the inside of my skull with you. It's a jungle in here.

The finished image

"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." - Genesis 1:27

I've been idling over the topic of this week's post for quite a bit now. There's just no easy way to introduce the subject of genetic disease. Sensitive subject matter, whichever way you look at it. To scientists, biology is at its most fascinating and informative when it goes wrong. Often, genes are named after the condition that results when they malfunction. In the lab, determining the function of a specific gene is often done by disrupting the gene in a model organism and investigating any physical changes that result. What we don't realize is how often Nature does the same kind of experimenting.

What a miraculous thing every successful fertilization event is! A sperm and an ovum fuse, forming a zygote, the beginning of a new multicellular organism, with half of its genes derived from the paternal genome, and the other half from the maternal genome. The doubling of DNA and movement of chromosomes essential to this miracle form a major chapter in any biology textbook; the meiotic mantra of prophase-metaphase-anaphase-telophase is chanted in classrooms and lecture halls across the globe. Nature is not textbook perfect, however. Chromosomes get damaged, broken, left behind. They fuse into new entities, unsure of their alliances. The DNA sequences they harbour change over time, get deleted, repeated, inverted, mutated. Here's the rub: change is good. Mutation and change is what drives organisms to adapt to new environments and new pressures. It is what enables them to succeed in the future. Curiously, mutation works blind, unable to see what natural selection is requiring from it. Not all changes are equal; not all mutants fit the mould. Nearly a quarter of all human fertilization events will be aborted - often so rapidly that the woman doesn't even realize that she was pregnant. More than 50% of all embryos miscarried in the first trimester are found to have chromosomal abnormalities. These genetic changes are so severe that they prove lethal. In fact, we all carry a few genes where one of the two copies (alleles) is functionally incapacitated in some way and is compensated for by the healthy copy on the other chromosome - it is masked, recessive. Without that healthy copy, you would probably have suffered from some genetic disorder. More likely, you would never have been born.

Fibrodysplasia. For hundreds of years the medical records noted patients who slowly "turned to stone". This is a very rare condition, striking one out of every two million people. We now know this disease as fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or FOP. It is autosomal dominant - you only need one copy of a mutant gene to be affected. Mutations in several different genes can lead to FOP, but the genes all share a common developmental pathway: that of embryonic bone morphogenesis. These genes are involved in bone formation in babies, but get switched off soon after. In FOP patients, one of the genes stays turned on into maturity, with grave consequences. Slowly, muscles and connective tissue are converted to bone. Slight injuries induce massive spurts of bone growth, making surgery to remove the lumps of bone impossible - it only exacerbates the situation. Sufferers might be unable to move their necks, open their jaws or lift their hands as more layers of ectopic bone are deposited, fusing their skeletons in place. Harry Eastlack, the most well-known FOP sufferer, donated his body to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, where his skeleton (above) dripping with bone like a cave drips with stalactites, can still be seen. He passed away in 1973, six days before his fortieth birthday.

Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome. Decades ago, boys with this disease were often misdiagnosed as having cerebral palsy. They writhe and twist and are mildy retarded. But they also suffer from horrifying, uncontrollable urges to self-mutilate. Sufferers will bang their heads against the wall, or bite themselves. Many need to be strapped in and restrained to prevent them from chewing off their own fingers and lips, or gouging at their own eyes, screaming in pain and terror as they do so. Care-givers are also not spared, and may be sworn at or punched, often while the patient apologizes profusely for their compulsion. This terrible disease is caused by mutations in the gene that codes for the HPRT enzyme, involved in the metabolism of nitrogenous molecules called purines. When this enzyme malfunctions, there is a build-up of uric acid, which leads to gout and kidney problems and is also responsible for the changes in neurological development. Most sufferers die of kidney failure early in life. This is a recessive disease, meaning that a healthy copy of the gene will compensate for a faulty one, and the person will not be afflicted but merely a carrier. Unfortunately, the gene resides on the X chromosome. So whereas girls inherit an X from their mother and an X from their father, boys inherit an X from their mother and a Y from their father. Men make do with a single X chromosome. If it happens to contain the faulty HPRT1 gene, they will develop Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. Carrier mothers therefore have a 50% chance of transmitting the gene to their sons. Fortunately, this disease is also very rare, and typically affects only 1 out of every 380 000 people worldwide.

Fatal Familial Insomnia. We've all heard of prions, those infectious proteins hiding in our hamburgers, lying in wait for an unsuspecting victim to consume them and become another sporadic case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Prions are differently folded variants of normal proteins essential to brain function. When a prion protein comes into contact with a normal protein of the same kind, it can change the shape of that protein into the prion fold. The new prion is like a zombie victim; once bitten, it too becomes a zombie and can turn others into zombies with its lethal bite. Prion proteins form plaques of long fibres inside neurons, damaging their delicate structure and disrupting their function. Most prion diseases take the form of transmissable spongiform encephalopathies - the prion proteins are tranferred through transfusions, transplants, or consuming tainted meat. In the rare case of fatal familial insomnia, the disease is most definitely genetic: if one parent had it, then each child has a 50% chance of developing it as well. The age of onset varies from 20 to 60, so it usually strikes when patients have already had children. The symptoms of FFI are unpleasant, because it is literally a fatal case of insomnia. People with FFI find themselves terminally unable to fall asleep, inhabiting a debilitating world somewhere between slumber and wakefulness. Drastic weight loss occurs, together with decreases in muscle control. No longer able to speak or walk, they are bedridden (a cruel twist) with nothing to do but stare at the walls. Curiously, FFI does not impair cognition, or cause dementia: up to the very end, before the bliss of coma and death, sufferers are completely aware of what is happening to them. It has so far only been identified in about 40 families, and members can be screened for the mutant gene that causes the protein to assume the malignant fold. Researchers hope that the study of FFI might lead to a cure for other prion diseases like CJD, and protein misfolding diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

Trimethylaminuria. TMAU, a metabolic disorder that sounds hilarious, yet is anything but funny for those who suffer from it. For them it is a source of much embarrassment. Also known as fish odour syndrome, this disease is again caused by a malfunctioning gene. The gene, FMO3, is located on the long arm of chromosome 1, and encodes an enzyme responsible for breaking down trimethylamine, a molecule formed from nitrogen-rich food by beneficial intestinal bacteria. The disorder is recessive, so both copies of the gene need to be malfunctioning for the disorder to manifest itself. Because trimethylamine is no longer broken down, it builds up in the body. The molecule, which has a fishy, ammonia-like smell, is released in the person's urine, sweat, and breath. No matter how often they wash, the smell is never gone for long. This disorder can be very disrupting. People who suffer from it often shy away from social interaction by isolating themselves, and sometimes struggle with feelings of guilt or depression. Although there is no cure, avoiding certain foods high in nitrogen seems to help, as do daily doses of charcoal to soak up the smelly compounds.

Huntington's Disease. On the short arm of chromosome 4 lies a gene encoding a protein essential to the maintenance of neurons, called huntingtin. The gene sequence specifies the exact order of amino acids that need to be linked together to form the functional protein. Part of this sequence is a stretch of repeats of the same amino acid, glutamine, over and over again. The exact length of this patch of glutamine repeats varies from person to person. Healthy people can have anything from 9 to 35 such glutamines linked end-to-end in this part of the protein. In people with Huntington's disease, or HD, this repeat sequence has been vastly extended, sometimes to more than a hundred repeats. Somewhere along the line, the sophisticated cellular machinery that reads and copies the genetic code had lost its place in all the repeats, reread the code again and created extra copies of those requests for glutamine in the gene sequence; HD is a codon reiteration disorder. The mutant form of huntintin no longer functions normally, and is also not broken down like it should be. Neurons start to die off. Interestingly, the longer the repeats in the mutant huntingtin are, the earlier the patient's symptoms start. HD is typically a progressive decline, with chorea and athetosis generally being the first physical symptoms. Chorea is characterized by abnormal involuntary jerking movements, while athetosis is a continuous writhing movement of the hands and feet. These irregularities in coordination increase as the disease progresses. In the later stages, speaking and swallowing are impaired. The most frightening aspects of HD are those that involve the mind itself - patients often become anxious or depressed, sometimes aggressive or compulsive. They lose the capacity for abstract thinking, for planning ahead or choosing appropriate actions. This deterioration is particularly traumatizing for children who often end up taking care of their ailing parents, loved ones who have become strangers to them. HD is an autosomal dominant disease - if you have the mutant gene, you will eventually develop the disease. Because it only manifests later in life (the average age when symptoms start is 40) HD is often only diagnosed when patients already have children. This means that the mutation gets passed on to the next generation 50% of the time. There is a very efficient DNA test available to detect the presence of the gene. However, many children of HD sufferers choose to rather not know their own fate. At the start of the 21st century, Huntington's disease is still a terminal illness with no cure. If you had a 50% chance of inheriting it, would you want to know for sure?

Let us not view this as a morose post, a mere list of genetic disease, a list of things that can go wrong. Rather, it is intended to be a celebration of the miracle of multicellular life and of how precious a healthy genome truly is. It is a salute to those brave people who live with genetic disorders; they have been of immeasurable help in the study of genes and their functions. They represent the reluctant pioneers of our collective genome, those who are sacrificing themselves in testing the limits of human evolution. Change is good.

"The living form defies evolution at its peril; if it does not adapt, it will be broken. The idea of completed man is the supreme vanity: the finished image is a sacrilegious myth." - John Wyndham, The Chrysalids, 1955

80th post commemorative poll

Originally started as a means for me to share my small collection of orchids with the world through a series of In The Greenhouse posts (remember those, anyone?) this blog has evolved into the garden of earthly delights you see today. Eclectic Epiphytes and Electrophoretic Epigrams has amassed 80 posts since it started two years ago in October of 2005. Can you believe it? I feel it's pretty impressive, given that I'm not the most prolific of bloggers. In the span of those two years I've tried to provide some insight into the things inside my head. In order to celebrate this auspicious occasion, I'd like you to participate in a poll to select the best post from the (E&E)² Herbarium! Yes, folks, your vote counts!

I have selected ten of my personal favourite posts from over the years:

• the post singing the praises of my favourite molecule
• the post unconvering the seedy underbelly of orchid shows
• the post about rare records
• the post where I revealed personal stuff... kind-of
• the post listing cool things to do with biotechnology
• the post about my ultimate fanboy experience
• the post about the dangers of working in a lab
• the post explaining the intricacies of collecting first edition books
• the post with the mystery squid
• the post about my whirlwind trip to Cape Town

That's the list. Use the links to delve into the archive. Use the polling box in the sidebar to cast your vote. You can only vote once, and the poll closes at the end of November 2007. I hope you've had as much fun reading my inane ramblings as I've had writing them. Here's to the next two years of digital gardening!

A secret dream of three islands

As the first snow of the season comes drifting down from a sky grey as concrete, my thoughts turn to the inviting islands of the tropics. Scattered between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are some of the most fascinating and mysterious places on the planet. Isolation in time and space has caused the rapid radial evolution of unique and diverse forms of island life, to the benefit of documentary filmmakers the world over. Charismatic presenters with well-funded television crews have brought the volcanic craters of the Galápagos Archipelago with its giant tortoises and the enigmatic orangutans of steamy Borneo into our homes. The existence of the idiosyncratic lakes of Palau was arcane knowledge once, their masses of harmless jellyfish that nourish photosynthetic bacterial gardens by following the path of the sun by day, and descending into the nutrient rich depths at night, being only of interest to science. These days, organized dives at Jellyfish Lake are big business. In the 21st century, we have become complacent. Once an island has featured on a season of Survivor, the mystique is gone. The Philippines, The Azores, The Comoros, Zanzibar, Tasmania, Fiji, Malabo, The Island of Hispaniola, all of these still hold great treasures to discover: if you care to look past the trappings of tourism, past the generic resorts, the casinos and beach parties, this is where you will find Beauty.

The warm haze of a daydream sets off neuronal synapses. Pressure drops. Temperature rises. I find myself on three of my favourite islands. Look.

Madagascar. The world's fourth largest island; its vastness is not to be underestimated. Madagascar is so diverse, so strange, the archetype of curious islands, really. Apart from its bounty of lemurs, chameleons and rare bird species, it is also a centre of endemism of the vegetable kind. Weird vegetables, at that. The Avenue of the Baobabs at sunset is a heart-stopping sight. Smooth glowing trunks standing tall and fat and healthy against the orange sky. Please ignore the rotting stumps of fallen giants, cut down for some counterintuitive, senseless reason. Madagascar is home to seven species of this special tree, six of which are found nowhere else. Waxy white Angraecum orchids festoon its forests and jagged limestone outcrops. The arid south is the location of a unique spiny thicket, pictured here. Baobabs are not the only succulents that give the impression that they were planted upside down. Swollen caudiciform shrubs abound in the Ifaty Spiny Forest, storing moisture during the long wait for monsoon rain. Didiearas thrust their thorny branches into the hot sky, looking like burnt ghosts, inspiring legends, demanding worship. However, the green cathedrals of Madagascar are slowly slipping away from us. These wonderful riches are being destroyed by mining, erosion, through agriculture, deforestation and apathy.

New Caledonia. South of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean lies the French territory of Nouvelle-Calédonie. It is small in comparison to the mighty Madagascar, but is just as bountiful and diverse. And just as threatened. The kagu, a unique blue ground-living bird, has become the icon of New Caledonia nature conservation. At first glance New Caledonia is anything but exceptional among tropical islands. It straddles the Tropic of Capricorn, and like so many South Seas islands receives storms brought by the trade winds. It is surrounded by azure shallows perfect for reef diving with dugongs. It also has some old growth pine forests. Wait - pine forests? Aren't those particular to colder climes? Indeed. But you see: New Caledonia is our last precious example of the magnificent forests that must have covered much of the continent of Antarctica millions of years ago. It's hard to imagine that Antarctica was ever green, but the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana certainly was. As it broke apart and Africa and Australia drifted west and east, New Caledonia was sent out into the South Pacific, carrying its coniferous gift. The gymnosperms of New Caledonia are an exclusive club - all 43 species are endemic, occuring only there - and quite a mixed bunch. There are 18 kinds of Podocarpus, 6 cypress species, a yew and nearly half of the world's araucarias, those Jurassic evergreens sometimes referred to as 'monkey-puzzle' trees. Some of these trees survive in such small numbers and are so sensitive to climate change that their continued survival seems jeopardized. Will we go on losing things we never even knew we had? The French refer to one of the smaller islands in the New Caledonia archipelago as 'l'île la plus proche du paradis', which means 'the closest island to paradise'. Its name is the Isle of Pines.

Socotra. Look at a map of Africa. Scrutinize the area known as the Horn of Africa, that landmass jutting into the Indian Ocean just south of the Arabian Peninsula. See the little island there, as if the tip of the Horn had broken off? You've located Socotra, Yemen's largest island. And bizarre it is, too. Its 40 000 inhabitants speak Socotri, supposedly derived from the language spoken by the Queen of Sheba. It can be classified as a tropical desert, with more than 300 plant species being endemic. Of these, nine whole genera of plants are found there and nowhere else. That's an amazing amount of biodiversity. This is what evolution does when an island is separated from the mainland for 20 million years. Socotra has forests of Boswellia, a small tree that produces the aromatic resin known as frankincense. Similar to the dry forests of Madagascar, the unforgiving climate compels many plants to conserve moisture. Swollen stems sprout from the gritty soil, their contorted branches remaining leafless for much of the year. A lunar forest. One of these caudiciforms is Dendrosicyos socotrana, the only member of the Cucurbitaceae (which includes squash, melons, pumpkins and cucumbers) to have graduated from that lowly life into the grand stature of a tree. It is on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Probably the most emblematic of Socotran botanical curiosities is the Dragon's Blood tree, Dracaena cinnabari, pictured here. This is the same genus as the familiar office plant fodder and little green pieces of so-called 'lucky bamboo' sold in florists. It is definitely not a true bamboo (which is a member of the vast family of grasses), and is more closely related to the agaves of the New World. When wounded, the trunk of this remarkable plant weeps a bright red sap, the mythical 'dragon's blood'. Highly prized in the ancient world, it was used as a panacea to cure almost everything, from fever to skin disorders and stomach ailments. The skillful Italian violinmakers of the 18th century used it as a source of dark red varnish for the most exceptional of their instruments. Although protected by CITES, many of Socotra's interesting and useful plants are under threat from overgrazing and human development. Will this distruction be the theme that ties all the places of secret beauty together? When will we realize that it is the Beauty of nature that has always been the secret inspiration behind all of our endeavours, our technology, our poetry?

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

- e.e. cummings

Frivolous Freelance Friday Fritillaries

The world revolves slowly. One continous day and one continuous night are perpetually chasing one another across the surface of the planet, crossing an imaginary line drawn through the ocean that causes human beings to flip the pages of their calendars and diaries. I have been tagged by karen little, several time zones removed from me now, but always close, somehow. Tagging is fun and infuriating at the same time. I am one of those people who openly define themselves by what they do, and only privately by what they are. The Orchidhunter is just one, eclectic-electronic version of me. But let's see what I can come up with...



The rules:

1. Post these rules before you give your facts.
2. List 8 random facts about yourself.
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them.
4. Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they've been tagged.

The randomness:

1. I'm a member of the American Orchid Society.

2. I have had the same pencil tin since starting my undergraduate degree. It's a beaten up metal tin with the words "2000 - the millennium year and beyond" still just barely visible on the top. Apart from the traditional collection of stationery, this tin has always been home to the following: two marbles; a nut with no bolt; a small ball-bearing; two bright red beans from the common coral tree Erythrina lysistemon; five bright red beans from the broad-leaved coral tree Erythrina latissima; three speckled calypso beans; a small plastic lizard from a surprise egg, given to me by my sister's youngest daughter; a green foil smiley face - a table decoration from some long-forgotten party; two red nerite shells I collected on the beach at Jeffrey's Bay in 1993; and tablets of paracetamol.

3. My living room is decorated with photographic prints of sea nettles, jellyfish in the genus Chrysaora. These beautiful organisms are very amenable to aquaculture and are housed in specialized aquariums around the world. I'd love to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, where they have a splendid display called 'Jellies: Living Art' combining jelly tanks with the organic glass masterpieces of Dale Chihuly.

4. Certain smells that seem to delight other people leave me with nothing but a headache. I cannot stand the smell of jasmine. Discovering that the smell of jasmine actually has 'a definite faecal undertone' in Sharman Apt Russell's immensely readable Anatomy of a Rose, just confirmed what my olfactory nerves had suspected all along. I also cannot stand scented soaps, incense, scented candles, or the smell of most household cleaning agents. All those dreadfully synthetic pink smells. Give me the good old chemical smell of plain bleach anyday. Why must your home smell like cinnamon-pumpkins for Thanksgiving? Why can't it just have the neutral smell of air? You know: 78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, 1% argon, 1% carbon dioxide, the name you know and trust? Are you vainly trying to mask the foetid odour of a house inhabited by the filthy mammal you really are? What are you trying to hide? The sense of smell is such an intensely personal thing, intimately tied to the cerebral process of memory. Why waste it on an artificial, so-called 'lily-of-the-valley' tea candle? It's just offensive.

5. Unlike other people, I find it impossible to sing in the shower. The acoustics are always bad. And how do you sing without swallowing water?

6. I study the molecular and genetic interactions between plants and aphids. As far as bizarre goes, few things can beat an aphid. Imagine an insect that is always female, gives birth to live nymphs, is born pregnant, feeds exclusively on plant sap which is so poor in nutrients that the aphid has to secrete most of what it ingests as sticky honeydew out its arse, is actively farmed by ants because of its nectar-like poo, drinks its liquid lunch through a set of mouth parts 0.5µm in diameter, and causes billions of dollars worth of damage to crops annually. This year, I hope to do some EPG (electronic penetration graph) studies, which are basically the aphid version of an electroencaphalogram: you attach an electrode to the aphid with metallic glue and proceed to monitor its feeding behaviour through alterations in electric current. I'm hoping to combine this with virus-induced gene silencing of certain candidate genes in the plant, in order to tease out what actually makes some plants resistant to aphid attack. Now, if it all just works out...

7. I love going to music concerts, but have chalked up way too few so far. Hopefully living in Colorado will soon change this for the better. I pine for those live concerts I've missed, never to return again: Talking Heads. Jimi Hendrix. The Smiths. Anita O'Day. Before I die, I'd love to see the Scissor Sisters live. Or Goldfrapp. Massive Attack. The Knife. Fischerspooner. Ladytron. The list goes on. The only thing that could ever beat the best live show I ever attended, though, would be another Depeche Mode concert. Such great memories. My sister took me to my first big stadium concert - Gloria Estefan live at Loftus - so many years ago. Although the only song I was actually familiar with was Conga, the whole experience of being part of the crowd, experiencing the dynamic artistry on the stage, instilled in me an instant addiction. Live concerts for the hell of it are sometimes fun: I was the only person in the crowd at a Counting Crows concert in Johannesburg who had not heard Mr. Jones before they actually played it onstage. I'm still not a fan, truth be told. But to attend a concert as a fan, with like-minded friends, is one of life's biggest pleasures. Encore!

8. People are confused by the name of this blog. It's long and no-one knows what it means, apparently. However, it captures the reasons why I blog perfectly. There are several meanings here, all intertwined like the roots of orchids growing in the cloud forest. Orchids are epiphytes. Epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants. Epiphytes are not parasites, they simply use the bigger plants as perches, as support, as a means to get closer to the light and the air. I love orchids and all things horticultural and botanical. This blog hopes to provide support for the many eclectic and diverse things I'm passionate about, bringing them out of the dark corners of my brain and into the light of the blogosphere. The blog is a platform for my opinions, my creative outlet. I post short pieces I'd like to believe are at times witty or humorous, not exactly epigrams of course, but you get the idea. I only write about things I'm interested in or passionate about. Things that move me. Electrophoresis is the movement of charged molecules - such as DNA - in the presence of an electric field, thereby separating them and revealing their true nature. Do you understand now? Eclectic Epiphytes and Electrophoretic Epigrams is an ever-evolving collection of posts about the thrill of existing in the 21st century. The things that have grown on me. The things that move me.

That's it, I suppose. Now to tag some other victims, erm... bloggers. I'm only tagging four of you though (to leave more people to tag later on, see?). Let's go with Adam, who I think is always up for the job; Mike, who is bound to make it revealing; Arcadia, who is sure to make it beautiful; and Twanji, who actually reveals less of himself than I do.

A certain ambivalence

You cannot integrate into a new culture in merely a month. My new environment is different and strange. You grow up watching American movies and cinema, but until you've been to the country yourself, you really have only a vague concept of what it's like. To be honest, I still feel like a tourist: a visitor to the zoo, looking in, not part of the multicultural tapestry that is the US of A.*

Since I love making lists, and my last proper list on this blog was posted in May, I thought it would be diverting to list some of my recent discoveries in the form of a comparative analysis with my home country. But instead of slagging off one country as these lists usually go, I'll focus on the good things about both the USA and the RSA. I cannot say that it's worse or better here. What i can say is that it's definitely different.

• Technology. Access to broadband internet in the US is excellent, cheap and ubiquitous. The whole Downtown Fort Collins is rigged up for wireless, as is the whole university campus. On the other hand, I do miss the cellular communications systems in South Africa. SIM cards, GSM networks, number porting between service providers, and consumer choice of handset as wide as you can imagine. Come back Vodacom, all is forgiven! The winner: the USA, by several Kbps.

• Food. US supermarkets are stocked with the most amazing variety of products. From the seventy kinds of peanut butter, ninety flavours of ice cream and thousand formats of Coca-Cola, to the incredible selection of south-of-the-border treats like blue corn chips and chipotle salsa. On the other hand, I miss South Africa's supreme cornucopia of fresh produce: Cape apples, cling peaches, avocadoes by the bag, litchis by the box, papayas from Nelspruit farm stalls, spotless potatoes from Fruit-n-Veg City. Where's a Woolworths when you need one? The winner: sunny South Africa, by a head of cabbage.

• Nature. Colorado is an amazingly beautiful place, sporting snow-covered mountains, valleys covered in pines and aspen trees, and fast flowing rivers stocked with trout. It's a place where you can walk out of your front door and find squirrels and red foxes co-existing in the suburbs. On the other hand, South Africa has a particular beauty all it's own: once experienced it is never forgotten. It is unique and precious; it is the landscape of my spirit.** The winner: South Africa, by a mountain that looks like a table and some wild horses wearing stripey pajamas.

• Society. Americans are easily the friendliest, most helpful people I've ever met. Folks have no qualms with striking up an anonymous conversation on the bus, and everyone seems genuinely interested in where I come from and what I'm doing here. Online purchases are delivered to my door, and actually stay there - untouched - until I return home in the evening! On the other hand, South Africa is the only place where people really know how to do a proper barbecue -it's called a braai, folks. South Africans have a wonderful sense of humour and know how to laugh at themselves. It's the only place where people get what the word lekker means, which says a lot. The winner: The USA, by a white picket fence, patient drivers and a host of friendly store clerks.

So in the end, there is no real winner here. Some aspects of living in a new country are exciting, some are infuriating, some are delicious, some are fattening, some are confusing, some are gorgeous, some are quite scary. But better or worse? Hmm, I just can't tell you yet...

*Ooh, that last part was so twee, I think I just threw up a little as I was typing it.
** Urgh. I think I did it again.

This much I know is true

Outside my window the trees are moving. A cold front is bringing winter to the Highveld. Sunny afternoons and cold nights bring many people a sense of melancholy or ennui, but the changing seasons fill my days with whimsy and nostalgia. This might be because I'm moving soon: I feel like I need to take stock of my life, somehow. I've been thinking about my life as an undergrad genetics student during the first part of the 21st century. What fun; how naive I was about science in those first three years. After more than seven years of studying molecular biology, I feel like I've honed my learning, narrowed it down to key skills. I know I did physics and calculus in my first year at university - where did that knowledge go? Bernoulli's principle is a foreign concept again. Is my brain really that selective, choosing to archive only the facts that would prove useful in my future career?

I was almost convinced that this was true, but then decided that it was not the case. Because what I remembered was this: vivid lectures in darkened rooms where professors shared with me the most incredible arcana of our natural world. These facts are not just bubblegum trivia: they are the keys to where we come from, where we are going, and how to get there. They are the truths that achieve what nothing else ever could, and why I chose to become a scientist in the first place: they fill me with a sense of awe. I would like to share some of these secrets with you, secrets discovered through the cumulative efforts of brilliant minds across the ages and continents.

∙ The complex structure of the eye has actually evolved independently in different lineages of organisms at least five times.

∙ The nuclear envelope is confluent with the endoplasmic reticulum and plasmamembrane, so that - in essence - the nucleus is controlling the cell from the outside.

∙ Since HIV enters T-cells by mimicking certain proteins of the immune system, any vaccine that acts by mimicking HIV to stimulate the immune system might actually induce AIDS without the presence of the virus.

∙ The photosynthetic protein ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase is the most abundant enzyme on the planet, making up 15% of the total protein content of chloroplasts.

∙ The 3D spatial arrangement of chromatin inside the cell is of vital importance in gene regulation. This spatial orientation of DNA is severely altered in individuals suffering from epilepsy.

∙ Due to genetic imprinting, the copies of genes responsible for the growth of the placenta are activated only on chromosomes inherited from the father. This makes its growth more aggressive, as maternal genes wouldn't want to jeopardize her capacity for future conceptions.

∙ Certain people have a 32 base pair deletion in the gene for the CCR5 chemokine receptor. This is a known docking site for HIV and people with the deletion are resistant to infection. If we infected everybody everywhere in the whole world with HIV, we could achieve global immunity in one generation. Of course, only a fraction of us would actually survive.

∙ In reality, plants can only produce three kinds of structures: leaves, stems and roots. All other structures including thorns, tubers, flowers and fruit are formed through modification of those three primary structures.

∙ During continued carbon starvation, the body enters a state of ketosis, during which the heart and brain use acetone and related molecules for energy.

∙ The combined weight of all the viral particles floating in the world's oceans right now far surpasses the combined weight of all the whales swimming in it too.

∙ Nicotine is so toxic that the tobacco plant has to store it in special vacuoles. If you grind up the leaves of one tobacco plant and spray the resultant nicotine extract onto another tobacco plant, that plant will die.

∙ Fungi are not plants. Although they are classified into their own kingdom, fungi share many similarities with insects, not just in certain genetic signatures, but also in the ability to synthesize chitin.

∙ Most fertilization events end in spontaneous abortion due to genetic defects in the embryo. Usually the mother never even realizes that she was pregnant.

Disclaimer: it is plain to see that I have not referenced anything in this post. Please do not cite it as a primary source of information. Always go back to the original published accounts.

The vinyl frontier: message in the medium

Few people own a vinyl record player. I don't. The culture of buying LPs, 7" and 12" singles is pretty much extinct in South Africa. Unless you're older than I am or a DJ, chances are you have no idea of what a 7" or 12" is. Don't get me wrong: I love new technology and wouuld never trade in my collection of CDs and MP3s for hoary old LPs and 8-track tapes. Yet it cannot be denied that there is something so damn... romantic about the crackle and pop of a stylus travelling in the groove, making music as if by magic. Old records were cool in other ways, too. They're huge, and therefore the space for album art is so much more. Gone are the days of the complicated psychedelia of The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Grateful Dead sleeve art and hello to the posed portraits of Gwen Stefani and Mary J. Blige as seen on the Top 40 rack at Musica. How else? Compact discs are just that - compact - and somehow require artists to brand them with their faces.

And so you can go on and on, comparing the pros and cons of vinyl vs. CDs. But there is one very special aspect of vinyl records that has been lost in the digital age. If you look at the runout groove of a record (especially if it was mastered at places like The Exchange in London or Frankford Wayne in New York) you might see a little secret message, engraved in the dead wax. Normally, this is where the person who does the mastering would have inscribed the catalogue number and other reference codes into the master disc with a stylus, but sometimes they add a personal touch (for a better understanding of how mastering a vinyl record works, read the Wikipedia article). What started as an industry inside joke soon grew into a cult phenomenon, and several websites are dedicated to cataloguing runout groove inscriptions. Even the artists themselves got in on the act and several bands requested that specific messages be inscribed on their records for their fans to discover.

Here are three of the many, many vinyl records out there with interesting things written in the runout groove. Have you discovered any?

Joy Division. Love Will Tear Us Apart. 7" single.
Factory Records FAC23 [1980]

Side A: Don't disillusion me
Side B: I've only got record shops left

This is obviously meant to be read as one message - has music become the only thing of value in the author's life? Is it an eerily prophetic message from vocalist Ian Curtis himself, who would commit suicide the month after its release?

Depeche Mode. Stripped. 12" single.

Mute Records 12Bong10 [1986]

Side A: Don't give me double messages, O.K?
Side B: More of a Kraftwerk kind of relationship

The older Depeche Mode singles are famous for crazy runout groove graffiti. The first message here is obviously a snub at another technician at the mastering plant, but does the second describe the influence of Kraftwerk's robotic electronica on the Mode's music?

Franz Ferdinand. Franz Ferdinand. LP.
Domino Records WIGLP136 [2004]

Side A: Because You're Lonely
Side B: Nobody Likes You

Didn't expect Franz Ferdinand in this list, did you? Their singles feature inscriptions too, and much speculation has arisen among fans as to what it all means. The band seems pretty tight-lipped about it, dropping subtle hints on their website from time to time. Curiouser and curiouser. It seems like the romance of vinyl is being kept alive, after all.

Rare mint 12" promo blue vinyl ltd. g/fold sticker p/s

What is it that makes a record collectible? What compels us to seek out these objects, obsess about them, pay exorbitant prices for them, hoard them, display them, hide them, worship them, flaunt them and eventually resell them? I believe that there are a couple of things that make a record collectible. Rarity. Controversy. Beauty. Exclusivity. Novelty. But if you have to ask me what the one thing is that I believe inspires the desire to collect, then it must surely be this: provenance. Nothing beats owning that rare record with a great story. Here are four collectibles with great stories.


1. The Beatles. Yesterday and Today with butchers sleeve.
LP. Capitol Records ST2553 [1966]
Essentially an LP of songs previously only released on the UK versions of the Help! and Rubber Soul albums of 1965 and some tracks from their upcoming Revolver album of 1966, this American release initially featured sleeve art by photographer Robert Whitaker. The macabre photograph featured the Fab Four dressed in butcher's overcoats, draped with cuts of meat and dismembered plastic dolls. Capitol Records in the United States printed 750 000 copies of Yesterday and Today. Due to immediate public reaction, the record was recalled almost as soon as advance copies reached disc jockeys and store managers. In some areas, the record did indeed go on sale... for a whole day. Printing plant managers were requested by Capitol to destroy the record sleeves, and several were landfilled. However, to recoup costs, tens of thousands of recalled sleeves were cropped and had a compliant new cover pasted over the old one. First state records, without the new cover pasted onto them, are obviously the most valuable. Second state records, with an intact pasteover on the butcher image are also increasingly rare and valuable. Least valuable are third state records, where previous owners, curious to see the original condemned cover, have defaced their records by steaming or pealing off the pasteover. Twenty pristine, sealed, first state records were recently sold from the personal collection of Alan Livingston, ex-president of Capitol Records. These constitute some of the most valuable records on the planet, the purest crystallization of Beatlemania. Affluent collectors easily fork out $ 40 000 in order to get their hands on a Livingston Butcher.

2. Madonna. Sex.
Book. Warner Books 0-446-51732-1 [1992]
Obviously not a record, but rather a visual acompaniment to Madonna's album Erotica. This is one of the most sought-after items spawned by the music industry. Lavishly designed by Baron & Baron, it featured the work of many photographers, most notably Steven Meisel. Inside its mylar wrapper and metal covers nestled an opulent collection of collages, full colour photographs, monochrome prints and stylized snippets of text (ostensibly written by Madonna's persona Mistress Dita) and depicting the erotic adventures of Madonna and such friends as Naomi Campbell, Isabella Rossellini and Vanilla Ice. Although the volume seems quite tame today, it was hugely controversial upon release, with several stores refusing to carry it. The hype worked, though: the first print run of 1.5 million copies completely sold out worldwide in just three days. This makes Madonna the author of the single most successful coffee table book ever published. Included with the book was a CD in packaging styled to look like a condom wrapper, containing an alternate version of the song Erotica, called Erotic. Bound into the back of the book was a photonovella comic book, Dita in "The Chelsea Girl" consisting of photographs taken by Steven Meisel at the Hotel Chelsea in New York. Sealed first editions of Sex easily reach $ 200 with online resellers today.

3. U2. Achtung Baby 'Users Kit'.
Promo. Island Records U28 [1991]
A lot of the collectibles from today's musicians take the form of advance items sent out to radio stations and music magazines to promote records before their release. These can range from a simple CD-R containing a radio edit of a new single, to extravagant goodie bags produced in the hope of enticing airplay or a favourable review. The marketing machine behind Irish rockers U2 is quite adept at pimping the band in this way. Some of the most deliciously desirable promos were made for the 1991 album Achtung Baby. One of these took the form of a khaki coloured kit bag, curiously labeled as the U2 Achtung Baby (Ahk-toong Bay-bi) 'Users Kit'. This PVC lined nylon bag rolled out to reveal the Achtung Baby album on CD and cassette, a U2-branded poster showing a Trabant on one side and a map of Berlin on the other, an Achtung Baby/Trabant keyring, a dayglo pink and green pocket torch, a screwdriver and a spanner. How you're supposed to use all these items to further your Achtung Baby experience is unclear, and probably best left to the imagination. Apparently only 200 copies of it were made for lucky-lucky record industry people, and a copy in mint condition will fetch well over £ 500.

4. Tori Amos. Y Kant Tori Read.
CD. Atlantic Records 81845-2 [1988]
Very possibly one of the most-often bootlegged recordings out there, the title of this eponymous album by Ms. Amos and her ephemeral band Y Kant Tori Read was inspired by her being expelled from Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland for refusing to read sheet music. Atlantic Records fully abandoned promoting the album only two months after its release. The record, released three years before her 'official' debut Little Earthquakes, sold so poorly that most vinyl versions out there take the form of clipped promotional copies that sold for 99 cents. Apparently it truly is atrocious and doesn't remotely sound like anything Tori has recorded since (i.e. think 80's rock chick - the cover says it all). Tori Amos has distanced herself from it, requesting that no material from it ever be re-released, although some of the songs creep into her live performances now and then. The CD version of this bomb is one of the most sought-after of Tori collectibles: unopened CDs in the original American longbox have sold in excess of $ 1000 at the height of her career.

Note: the author does not own any of the items mentioned in this post, nor does the author have any intention to purchase any of the items in this post. The author thanks all the online second-hand record retailers for the pilfering of images without consent, especially Esprit International Ltd.