Thailand Wilts Hawaii’s Title of ‘Orchid Isle’ : Exports: Other moist, tropical regions, such as Malaysia, are also ideal for the exotic flowers. The U.S. state no longer leads in world trade.

Foreign competition is taking some of the bloom off this “Orchid Island.”

Millions of orchid plants and flowers are flown from the “Big Island” to the U.S. Mainland and Japan each year, and countless blossoms are used in the famous Hawaiian leis. In the last few years, however, Thailand has dominated world orchid markets.

The value of Thai orchids imported worldwide is more than $55 million a year, according to experts at the University of Hawaii.

“To add to our worries, Malaysia and Indonesia are coming on strong,” said Kenneth Leonhardt, a floral specialist at the university. “Those countries have cheap labor, available land and a benign climate--the same advantages that made Thailand such an effective competitor.”

Even in a slow economy, orchid growers here are scrambling to meet demand during the peak tourist season. “In the winter we sell everything that we get our hands on,” said David M. Matsuura, president of Orchid Isle Nursery. “The summer’s another matter. Then we really feel the pinch. Everyone throws away flowers.”

Orchids flourish in the Hilo region because of its balmy, moist climate. It may get as much as 200 inches of rain in a year.

“This cuts production costs,” Leonhardt explains, “because it enables growers to raise the plants in simple, open structures covered with fabric, that merely provide protection against harsh sunlight and damaging rains.”

Backyard gardeners started the Hawaiian orchid industry in the late 1940s by cultivating the flowers as a cash crop. In 1990, orchids were $10 million-plus business.

The “Big Island” became a world orchid center with five prime types: cymbidium, vanda, cattleya, dendrobium and phalaenopsis.

Surprisingly, these, like almost all Hawaiian orchids, came originally from tropical Asia and South America. Although the most spectacular varieties come from the tropics, orchids are found almost everywhere except Antarctica.

“Some orchids are incredibly hardy,” Leonhardt said. “They pop right up through the snow in parts of Asia and India.”

Orchids--there are about 25,000 species and more than 60,000 registered hybrids--constitute one of the largest families of flowering plants in the world. Most tropical orchids are epiphytes, air plants that grow on trees or rocks.

Epiphytes are not parasitic. Orchids use trees only as supports and take nourishment from minute particles of organic matter in rainwater or the natural debris that collects around their roots.

The smallest orchid could fit into a thimble. The largest plant weighs several hundred pounds and displays 3,000 blossoms. Some orchids resemble small swans or doves; others are shaped as bees, frogs or lizards.

One of the strangest orchids, a species in Western Australia, grows underground, where it feeds on decaying organic matter. Its pale pink flowers are bunched at the center of petal-like bracts.

The legendary black orchid doesn’t exist, although some orchids are almost black. They may be red, orange, yellow, green, purple, brown or white, but rarely blue.

“Orchids don’t have that true blue color,” observes Gerrit Takasaki, manager of Carmela Orchid laboratory. “There’s been speculation about inducing that color by genetically engineering plants with an isolated gene from the iris.”

Growers breed the flowers for durability, color and size. “Orchids have a pedigree just like thoroughbreds,” Takasaki said. “We keep records of what plants are pollinated, and their parents. A family tree is traced back to the beginning.”

Prized offspring are shipped worldwide to ardent collectors. Many growers compete in orchid shows.

“We look for roundness,” said Carmela’s president, Sheldon Takasaki, one of the American Orchid Society’s certified judges. “All the petals have to overlap, no space between flowers. We look for a strong color, not a muddy one. We don’t want streaking or anything else in there.”

Big growers commonly use an asexual reproduction process, called meristemming, to produce countless young orchids identical to a single parent plant.

A spear of meristematic tissue, the base of new growth, lies within the shoots of plants. Cut from the plants, the tissue is placed with nutrients in coded bottles. The growth proliferates into a cluster of nodules. When separated and placed with another nutrient, each nodule becomes a plantlet.

“We have about 50,000 bottles going at any one time,” says Gerrit Takasaki. “They produce as many as 2.5 million plants a year.”

Many of the laboratory-raised flowers give off a sweet fragrance, but some of the come-hither scents that guide pollinators to orchids in the wild can be pretty awful.

Some orchid scents mimic rotting meat or decaying vegetation. Said one fragrance expert: “You certainly wouldn’t want to send some of them for Mother’s Day.”