This Orchid Is Worth More Than an Apartment and Takes 5 Years to Bloom

Today, you’ll learn the story (or maybe the legend) of the most expensive orchid ever sold.

At the grocery store, these plants usually go for around $10 to $20. But the one we’re talking about here reportedly sold for $200,000.

Take a look at the photo below.

This is the Shenzhen Nongke, the most expensive flower the world has ever seen.

It was sold at an auction in China in 2005 for 1.68 million yuan, which works out to somewhere between $200,000 and $230,000, depending on the exchange rate your source uses.

Why is it so expensive?

This is an exclusive orchid developed in a lab by the Shenzhen Nongke group in Shenzhen, southern China, after eight to twelve years of research.

It’s grown entirely inside the lab, with no potting mix and no traditional greenhouse. Light, temperature, and nutrients are all tightly controlled.

And it grows extremely slowly.

It takes four to five years to bloom after planting, and after that it only blooms again every four or five years.

Why no one can find one to buy

Unlike orchids such as Paphiopedilum rothschildianum (whose story we covered in our article on rare orchids), the Shenzhen Nongke isn’t rare because it “only grows in one place,” like an endangered wild plant.

The Shenzhen Nongke is a different case.

Since it was created in a lab, it was patented, so its rarity comes from legal restrictions, not from the threat of extinction.

Is this story true?

This is where it gets interesting.

If you dig into online forums, you’ll notice there’s some debate over whether this orchid really sold for such a high price.

Some people point out that rare orchids really are worth a lot, and prices climb even higher at auctions:

• According to one grower, the price of the Shenzhen Nongke follows the same logic as Japan’s luxury fruit auctions, where a single melon can fetch a fortune because of the event and its rarity, not because it’s the best melon on the planet. The value is in the auction, not the petals.
• Another person described how his grandfather traded orchids with African diplomats and other important people. He said people would show up on Saturday nights with wads of cash just to take home a single small seedling. In other words, the rare orchid trade has always involved a lot of money.

Others, however, are skeptical, mainly because basic details are missing and no reliable sources (news outlets or gardening associations) have reported on the sale.

• We don’t know the name of the auction where the sale took place
• We also don’t know who bought the plant

What do you think?

I believe there really was a very expensive sale in China in 2005. Back then, not everything that happened was documented online.

Some technical details, such as how long the orchid takes to develop, its genus, and even the photo we used in this article, may be inaccurate. Unfortunately, there’s no way to verify them.

What’s your take? Do you believe this story? Let us know in the comments below.