I haven't posted anything on this thread for a while due to a variety of reasons but an incident yesterday prompted me to return.
Fellow MGS member and good friend, Yiannos Orphanos, stopped by my house with a beautiful Paphiopedilum orchid he had acquired. This genus was established by Ernst Hugo Heinrich Pfitzer in 1886. They are commonly known as Lady's Slipper orchids and the story goes that the gentleman in question gave a lot of thought as to who might be considered to have been the most beautiful 'Lady' in the history of the world. The answer he came up with was Aphrodite (Venus). The area of Paphos in Cyprus is sacred to Aphrodite, being the place of her birth, hence Paphio. The pedilum derives from the Ancient Greek pedilon, a slipper. So, although this genus of orchid is unknown on the island, or in the Mediterranean, being native to the Far East, this particular plant is Venus' slipper orchid.