Named after the Greek "phalaena" (moth) and "opsis" (looks like), Phalaenopsis is often called the "Moth Orchid" for its resemblance to a moth in flight. One of the most popular orchids, Phalaenopsis is native to regions throughout Southeast Asia, from the Himalayan Mountains to the Philippines and areas in northern Australia. The first Phalaenopsis species was described in 1753, but it wasn’t until the early 1800s that naturalists started shipping orchids to Europe. However, no one could figure out how to create more of them. Demand for these tropical orchids kept rising, but no one in Europe could reliably produce them. Orchid fever ran so hot that the wealthiest orchid lovers hired professional collectors to travel to faraway jungles and send plants back home, but they often dried up on the journey back. It took around 400 years of trying and countless experiments taken by professors and scientist for anyone to understand what makes an orchid seed grow into a plant. Then, in the 1970s, Dutch growers finally started mass-producing Phalaenopsis by using a cloning technique discovered by Donald Wimber, a cell biologist. Growers in the Netherlands started raising plants for the American market too. Then, in the early 1980s, a research geneticist in a USDA lab wanted to create an ideal houseplant for the general consumer: attractive, colorful, fragrant, and with long-lasting flowers. He started working on a commercial variety of Phalaenopsis, which was still rare and expensive at that time. Then Taiwan got involved, with a new cloning technique that created even more plants in a shorter period of time. By the 1990s, it finally became possible to buy orchids in many colors and patterns, for less than ever before. Once exotic, rare, and delicate, these orchids have been transformed into a commodity—inexpensive, widely available, and completely familiar.