I saw some amazing photos of black orchids in some plant groups on WhatsApp and Instagram, but I'm not sure if it's real or if people just make the photos too dark. Has anyone here actually seen or grown a real black one?
Have you ever seen one in person or just in photos? Black orchids do exist, but here's the trick: none of them are completely black. What you get are varieties like Catasetum macrocarpum and some Paphiopedilum that are such a dark purple they look black, especially in low light. The photos you see in groups are almost always edited, with the contrast cranked up and saturation through the roof - it really darkens everything and ends up looking gray in real life. If someone says they have a 100% black orchid, it's either editing or an optical illusion. What's actually real is having a very dark orchid, but with that deep tone that always has a hint of color underneath.
I grabbed some photos of these orchids from groups and I'm always suspicious about them too. The thing is they do exist, but it's like that whole thing with a photo using a dark filter - the plant isn't black in the literal sense, but such a dark purple, almost dark brown, that it looks black depending on the light. The Paphiopedilum rothschildianum and some Catasetum varieties come pretty close to it, but if you see it in real life under natural light, you'll notice there are definitely nuances. A lot of the illusion really comes from putting them in reduced lighting for the photo to look dramatic, which we do with our own phone cameras.
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