You may not believe it, but if you leave your lawn un-mown long enough you may indeed be able to grow an orchid, and here it is. The card calls it a "Purple Orchis", but today we call it the Early-Purple Orchid, and we continue to use the same Latin name as on the card, of Orchis mascula. And it is a native wildflower, to both the United Kingdom and across the Ireland. The flower is actually a flower head, with up to fifty separate purpley-pink flowers.
The first people to discover the alternative use of the Orchid were the Turks, in the eighth century, when they converted to Islam and were not allowed to drink alcohol. For some reason, they hit on the idea of digging up the orchids, and making their root into powder, adding milk and heated water to make it a drink. What they did not realise was that the root contained a substance called glucomannan, which has the side effect of opening the pathways to the lungs, and easing respiratory problems. And it was also believed that the tubers were an aphrodisiac.
That drink was called Salep, and it is not only still sold, it is still made from flour made from wild orchid tubers. The only problem with that is that to get just one kilo of flour, you have to dig up a thousand orchids, and that is leading to their extinction.
This set first appears in our original Wills reference book part four, as :
- 345. 50. WILD FLOWERS (1923). Fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in grey, with descriptive text. Home issues, 1923. -
A. With dot in each of the two panels immediately above "W" and final "s" of "Wills`s Cigarettes" on back (popularly known as "secret mark".
B. Without the above dots.
I have no idea what the purpose of these dots were, but I am certain someone else does, and can enlighten us all.
Our original World Tobacco Issues Index complicates things rather, by making it into a group, and apparently including a card which does belong to this series but which was issued much later on, and only in Ireland. This turns out to be the set without the dots, but the confusion comes because the dots are not mentioned, only a link to W/347.B, and if you don`t have the original Wills partworks you are unable to find that out. It also means that if you are not paying attention you could easily believe that this entire listing refers to the 1936 version of this set.
Anyway, the entry reads :
- WILD FLOWERS. Sm. Nd. ... W62-185
1. "A Series of 50". See W/345. Back (a) with (b) without dot in each of two panels above "W" and final "s" of "Wills`s Cigarettes". Home issue, 1923
2. "2nd Series of 50". See W/347.B. Irish issue, 1937.
And the entry in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index is exactly the same, but with a new card code, of W675-226