The prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, would now have a permanent footprint in the lush gardens of Singapore after the city-state decided to name a new orchid – the national flower of the island – in her honor. Ardern had arrived in Singapore on Monday on a three-day visit – her first since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic – focused on cooperation in trade, climate change, and security among other issues.
She has become the latest leader to be honored under the so-called “orchid diplomacy,” a tradition of naming a new orchid species grown in Singapore after a foreign leader or celebrity. The Dendrobium Jacinda Ardern, a hybrid of Dendrobium Lim Wen Gin and Dendrobium Takashimaya, has white flowers with a subtle shade of violet at the tip of the petal and is one of the around 220 orchids native to Singapore.
Some of the leaders who have had orchids named after them in the past include former German chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, and the former first couple of the United States, Barack and Michelle Obama.
Singapore had declared hybrid orchid Vanda Miss Joaquim, also known as the Singapore orchid or Princess Aloha orchid, as its national flower in 1980, with the pink bloom aimed to signify the multiculturality of the island, which houses over one million immigrants and has a population mainly consisting of ethnic Chinese, Malay and Indian communities.
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