Volunteer Park Conservatory cycads, and orchids, visitors will find banana ("Musa"), Bird of Paradise ("Strelitzia"), "Anthurium" and ginger (Zingiberaceae) in this house. The conservatory’s orchid collection, which began as a gift from Mrs. Anna H. Clise in 1921, is also found in the Palm House. Orchids are a large and diverse flowering plant family composed of more than 20,000 species. The conservatory’s collection includes representatives of the largest genera – "Bulbophyllum", "Epidendrum", and "Dendrobium" – as well as commonly cultivated genera such as "Cattleya" and "Phalaenopsis". Transporting endangered orchids is prohibited by the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) and many
Cattleya and shape from the rest of the flower and covers in part the flower column forming a tube. There are four polliniums (bag-like organs that contain pollen). The fruit is a capsule with many small seeds. The genus was named in 1824 by John Lindley after horticulturalist William Cattley. Cattley obtained a specimen of then unnamed "Cattleya labiata" from William Swainson who had discovered the new plant in Pernambuco, Brazil, in 1817. The plant successfully bloomed under the care of Cattley and it became the type specimen from which Lindley described "C. labiata". Currently accepted species and subgeneric division within