Professor Rapee Sagarik: Google Doodle celebrates the father of Thai orchids’ 97th birthday

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Thai horticulturist, botanist, and orchid expert Professor Rapee Sagarik’s 97th Birthday in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand—a nation that is home to almost 1,300 native species of orchid. He is additionally prominently called the father of Thai orchids or the father of Thai orchidology.

Who was Professor Rapee Sagarik?

Born on this day in 1922, Professor Rapee Sagarik was a Thai horticulturist, botanist and orchid master. He was a professor at Kasetsart University and served as its president from 1972 to 1980. Notwithstanding scientifically studying and classifying orchids, for which he got known as the “Father of Thai Orchidology”, he likewise worked in rice cultivar improvement and agriculture research and served as Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives.

Generally known as the “father of Thai orchids,” Professor Rapee Sagarik was likewise later president at Bangkok’s Kasetsart University and furthermore served on the Faculty of Agriculture at Maejo University in the northern city of Chiang Mai. He is broadly viewed as Thailand’s first expert in the breeding and conservation of these fragile, excellent plants.

When thought-about an exclusive pastime for the wealthy, orchid-becoming turned out to be a lot of out there thanks partly to Professor Rapee Sagarik’s analysis and education endeavors. He established the Orchid Society of Thailand in 1957 and later became a typical speaker at the World Orchid Conference. In 1984, he organized the primary Asia Pacific Orchid Conference. Thanks to Professor Rapee Sagarik’s endeavors, Thailand’s initial orchid library opened In December 1993.

Thailand is currently the world’s chief exporter of orchids, and a significant number of the most prevalent varieties were bred from wild Thai orchids.

“These flowers are not like the ones you see every day, which blossom and then wither away,” Professor Rapee Sagarik once watched. Since the beauty of orchids is passed onto people in the future, he called the flowers “love in humankind.”

Professor Rapee Sagarik died on 17 February 2018.

On 04 Dec 2019, Google was designed by Doodler Erich Nagler, honors the excellent Thai horticulturist, botanist and orchid master Professor Rapee Sagarik with a stunning and beautiful doodle.