The Orchid Review
The Orchid Review is the journal of orchids published by the Royal Horticultural Society in London, England. Founded in 1893, it is described by the RHS as the world's longest-running orchid publication, and it is recognised as the oldest existing periodical devoted to orchids. For most of its life it appeared monthly, then bimonthly and quarterly, and since 2023 it has been published annually as a yearbook. Its pages cover orchid species and hybrids, cultivation and propagation, taxonomy, exploration, conservation and the awards made to outstanding orchids by the RHS.
Foundation by Robert Allen Rolfe
The Orchid Review was founded by Robert Allen Rolfe, who single-handedly produced and edited its first twenty-eight volumes. The first monthly issue appeared on 1 January 1893. Rolfe worked in the orchid herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, although his position there was not mentioned in the periodical and his name never appeared on its title page. The journal was devoted to orchid cultivation and to the increasingly important subject of orchid hybridisation, at a time when British orchid growing — in the great glasshouses of wealthy collectors and the nurseries that supplied them — was at its height.
The early journal had a settled shape. Each issue opened with news and gossip under the heading 'Notes', later called 'Our Note Book'. Reports of visits to notable collections were a regular feature, the first being to Sir Trevor Lawrence at Burford Lodge, Dorking, in Surrey. A 'Calendar of Operations' set out the tasks for the month ahead, written for the first year by Lawrence's gardener, W. H. White. John Weathers contributed 'Orchids at the RHS', describing plants shown to the RHS Orchid Committee each month, and from May 1897 the meetings of the Manchester and North of England Orchid Society were also covered. Illustrations gradually increased in number over the years. In 1909 Rolfe, with Charles Hurst, published The Orchid Stud Book as a companion volume, listing all the hybrids recorded up to the end of 1907 with their parents, synonyms and references.
War, interruption and revival
The First World War did not at first change the journal's monthly frequency, apart from a combined November/December issue in 1917. From July 1918, however, rising costs of postage and paper forced publication to become bimonthly. Following Rolfe's sudden illness and death, The Orchid Review ceased publication for the first six months of 1921 — the only substantial break in its long history. On 5 July 1921 a new company, The Orchid Review Ltd, was incorporated, and Alfred Gurney Wilson was appointed editor. Wilson had previously published and edited The Orchid World from 1910 until 1916, when he was called up for military service.
Under Wilson the journal reappeared in July 1921 in a format similar to its pre-war self, monthly once more, though less chatty and more factual in style, and strong links were developed with orchid enthusiasts in the United States. Wilson retired in 1932 and was succeeded by Charles Curtis, a well-known horticultural journalist, whose 'Men, Matters & Memories' column added reminiscence and comment. The periodical was bimonthly throughout the Second World War, with a reduced number of pages, but returned to monthly publication after the war — a pattern of endurance through wartime constraint that few specialist journals matched.
The post-war decades
In early 1958 Curtis, by then editing largely from his bedside, was joined by an assistant, John Blowers, the orchid grower for the Honourable Nellie Ionides at Buxted Park in East Sussex. Blowers became editor after Curtis's death, his first issue appearing in May 1958. After a successful appeal for more articles, news and photographs, the journal had its first redesign in 1959, with a new green cover, updated type and layout and more photographs. New contributors joined, including more from overseas, and within three years Blowers had trebled the subscribers. He resigned at the end of 1969 under pressure of other commitments.
Blowers was succeeded by David Sander, a nurseryman and grandson of Frederick Sander, the celebrated 'Orchid King'. A brief experiment with a larger format in 1972 proved unpopular and lasted just a year. Rising printing and production costs dominated the 1970s: the subscription price rose twice in three years by 1973, and deadlines were repeatedly challenged by postal strikes, power cuts and the three-day week. Brian Williams, orchid grower to Sir Robert and Lady Lisa Sainsbury, became editor in 1974; a silver cover redesign followed in 1975, pages were reduced and a smaller typeface adopted, and support from the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust and private benefactors helped offset continuing deficits.
First woman editor and the move to full colour
In December 1978 Wilma Rittershausen became the journal's first female editor. She worked with her brother Brian in the family business, Burnham Nurseries, at Kingsteignton in Devon, and set about improving the periodical's finances, balancing its books by the end of 1979. Early in her tenure each issue had just two pages of colour among black-and-white photographs; gradually the colour increased until, in 1985, the journal became full colour. She also introduced supplements, including annual supplements for RHS awards, one for the World Orchid Conference in Durban, and one for the International Centenary Orchid Conference held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London in 1985. She resigned at the end of 1985 when the nursery relocated to Newton Abbot.
Her successor, Christopher Bailes, was manager of the Eric Young Orchid Foundation in Jersey. Colour content increased further, partly financed by donations to a 'colour fund', but the finances remained precarious. In March 1988 the Royal Horticultural Society agreed to take a quarter of the shares in the company and pay £4,000 annually towards costs — the first step in a closer relationship that would eventually secure the journal's future. Bailes, who also became curator of RHS Garden Rosemoor, remained editor until the end of 1989.
Takeover by the Royal Horticultural Society
John Blowers returned as editor for a further period, until Phil Seaton was appointed in 1992 and edited the centenary volume of 1993, which consisted of ten parts. At the end of 1992 the RHS agreed to take full responsibility for the technically insolvent publication. The board of directors was dissolved, the company was wound up, and Wilma Rittershausen returned as editor for the relaunched journal, which appeared with more pages, more colour and a bimonthly frequency, its balance tuned to satisfy both new and more experienced growers.
Rittershausen retired at the end of 2000. Dr Henry Oakeley edited the first three issues of 2001, and then, following an RHS review, Isobyl la Croix took charge for eight years, overseeing the transition to digital publishing. A redesign in 2005 brought a new cover, text in three columns and an expanded news section, with design undertaken by the RHS publications department in Peterborough. At the end of 2008 the periodical became quarterly. Sarah Forsyth, a horticultural journalist, became editor in January 2010, working with an editorial panel, and continued until James Armitage — editor of The Plantsman and previously a botanist at RHS Garden Wisley — was appointed in early 2020.
Subject matter
The journal's subject matter has remained remarkably consistent across its many formats. It publishes profiles and evaluations of orchid genera, species and hybrids of horticultural merit; accounts of recent orchid introductions and descriptions of new orchids; new or advanced techniques of cultivation and propagation; the awards made to orchids by the RHS; developments in orchid taxonomy and changes to orchid names; orchid exploration and travel; orchid conservation; advances in plant breeding; and profiles of orchid growers and breeders. Articles are written by internationally recognised experts for an audience that includes both professional nurserymen and serious amateur growers.
That breadth matters because the RHS is itself central to the orchid world. The society is the International Registration Authority for orchid hybrids, registering between 3,700 and 4,000 new hybrids each year, and its Orchid Committee judges plants for awards — work the journal reports and records. The RHS Lindley Collections hold more than 7,000 orchid portraits painted over 120 years by nine official orchid artists, part of the same culture of documentation to which The Orchid Review has contributed since 1893. A comprehensive index to the journal covering 1893 to 2025 is maintained, and the editors' list — from Rolfe through Wilson, Curtis, Blowers, Sander, Williams, Rittershausen, Bailes, Seaton, Oakeley, la Croix and Forsyth to Armitage — is itself a roll of British orchid growing.
From quarterly journal to annual yearbook
In 2023 The Orchid Review changed its form again, becoming an annual publication. The final quarterly issue was dated December 2022, and the first annual issue, dated 2023 and styled as a yearbook, was published in October 2023. Annual volumes continue the long sequence of volume numbering that began in 1893: the yearbooks of 2023 to 2025 are Volumes 131 to 133. As an annual, the publication functions more as a substantial review of the orchid year — its plants, people, awards and discoveries — than as a news journal, with the RHS website carrying faster-moving material.
Significance
Few horticultural journals anywhere can match The Orchid Review's continuity. It has been published through two world wars, the collapse and revival of its own company, repeated crises in printing costs, and the transition from hot-metal monthly to digital-era annual, with only one six-month interruption, in 1921. In doing so it has created an unbroken written record of orchid growing: of the great Victorian collections, of the hybridists who transformed the orchids available to growers, of changing cultivation practice, and of the gradual shift in emphasis towards taxonomy, exploration and conservation.
For its London publisher, the Royal Horticultural Society, the journal is both a membership publication and a flagship of the society's scientific and horticultural authority. For readers, it remains what Rolfe intended in 1893: a place where the orchid world — its new plants, its accumulated knowledge and its community of growers — is set down in permanent form.
