{"id":23945,"date":"2026-02-11T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/?p=23945"},"modified":"2026-02-04T20:45:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:45:40","slug":"monja-blanca-day-a-nation-celebrates-a-flower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/2026\/02\/11\/monja-blanca-day-a-nation-celebrates-a-flower\/","title":{"rendered":"Monja Blanca Day: a nation celebrates a flower"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

February 11 is Monja Blanca Day in Guatemala, a national holiday that honors the rare white orchid, which was designated the national flower in 1934. We take this day as an opportunity to reflect on national symbols and talk to Guatemalan botanist Fredy Archila, who is committed to protecting the flower.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Myths of Geography<\/em>, British human geographer Paul Richardson writes, to create a nation, you need a lot of imagination, a selective memory, and the ability to ignore unpleasant truths. This can be clearly demonstrated by the example of Guatemala\u2019s national flower, the Monja Blanca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guatemala was colonized by Europeans, and to this day there are major inequalities between the indigenous population and the descendants of European settlers in terms of education, employment opportunities, and the ability to make political decisions for themselves and their country. Moreover, other countries strongly interfere with Guatemalan politics, which perpetuate injustices and repeatedly lead to conflicts \u2013 most notable are US-American interventions (described e.g. in Mario Vargas Llosa\u2019s novel Harsh Times<\/a><\/em>). Nevertheless, the government and public institutions such as schools actively promote a certain national pride, using national symbols such as the Monja Blanca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fundamentally, the idea of a nation implies that a large group of people with a common language, culture, and history share certain characteristics and can therefore be described as a nation. Paul Richardson explains in Myths of Geography<\/em>: In order for the connection between people and \u201ctheir\u201d nation to feel genuine, it is necessary to constantly represent and repeat it. The emergence of a nation is based on the invention of symbols and traditions \u2013 such as selecting a national flower and celebrating it every year on a national holiday. And the inventors are quite selective in their approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I asked Guatemalan botanist Fredy Archila why the Monja Blanca was chosen as the national flower, he told me: \u201cIt was chosen on the recommendation of an American woman who had seen the flower at an orchid exhibition in Miami (USA). Her name was Leticia Sutherland. The government followed her suggestion and designated the Monja Blanca as the national flower. The use of national symbols is a sign of identity and national pride.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the Monja Blanca is depicted on banknotes, stamps, and all kinds of state emblems as a symbol of national pride in Guatemala, and is also used in the design of souvenirs, brands, and merchandise. I, for example, own a pair of Monja Blanca earrings. It is referred to as the jewel of the forest, and Archila, who has dedicated his research and his professional life to this flower, also considers it as such: \u201cThanks to financial efforts and great commitment, we have managed to bring it back to the forest after 21 years of extinction. That is why I am also called \u2018El guardi\u00e1n de las joyas del bosque\u2019 (guard of the jewels of the forest) or \u2018El guardi\u00e1n de la Monja Blanca\u2019 (guard of the Monja Blanca),\u201d says the botanist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the Monja Blanca, its status as the national flower is a great advantage: it\u2019s now of public interest to invest in its protection from various dangers. Fredy Archila runs the \u201cEstaci\u00f3n Experimental de Orqu\u00eddeas de la Familia Archila\u201d (\u201cArchila Family Orchid Research Station\u201d) with his family in Cob\u00e1n and educates people about orchids on social media under the handle Archilarum. Ultimately, he is engaged in science communication: he wants to spread information about the many different types of orchids in accessible formats. On Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, he and his sons share informative videos about the Monja Blanca and other orchids, give lectures in schools, and, like many others in Guatemala, celebrate the D\u00eda de la Monja Blanca (Monja Blanca Day) on February 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Monja Blanca flower consists of three white petals arranged in a triangle. Archila explains to me: \u201cThe name Monja Blanca (white nun) is a nickname, because the flower has a structure inside (like all orchids) that is technically called a gynostemium, in which the reproductive organs of the flower are fused together. Viewers say that it looks like a nun in a praying position.\u201d The three large leaves and their gynostemium are interpreted as a Christian figure dressed in white, bowing in prayer. The Christian church had an enormous influence during colonization. Missionaries made great efforts to convert the local population and, in the process, destroyed countless documents \u2013 knowledge about pre-colonial cultures that is now difficult to reconstruct for this very reason. Archila says: \u201cThere are no records of the name of the flower prior to colonization, but the Maya culture of the Q’eqch\u00ed’ call it Saqui hix, which means white jaguar, because to them it looks like a leaping jaguar.\u201d Archila couldn\u2019t tell me more, and in my research I found only sources on the botanical significance of the flower and not on its cultural meanings. However, colonialism or the invisibility of indigenous knowledge are not discussed at the celebration of the Monja Blanca as a national symbol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Archila and his colleagues draw attention to many other problems: orchids are exposed to several threats in nature, primarily excessive harvesting by nurseries that supply growers of exotic plants, who display them as status symbols, or drug dealers who offer aphrodisiacs and miracle cures. Another problem, Archila warns, is climate change: \u201cClimate change is a problem for all orchids, as water shortages affect the symbiotic fungi that help orchids germinate their seeds and absorb nutrients.\u201d Orchids are unique in that they require an association with fungus (mycorrhiza) for germination, and most, if not all, orchids continue to associate with various mycorrhiza species for life. Climate change and humans are harming orchids in many ways, according to Archila: \u201cThere\u2019s also the lack of rain that affects pollinating insects as their food sources decline. Furthermore, slash-and-burn forest clearing to grow corn and beans creates an atmosphere that damages the native pollinating bee population and limits the reproduction of the Monja Blanca.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this reason, Archila decided to protect more than 1,000 Monja Blanca plants at his station in Cob\u00e1n, caring for them appropriately and, as he says, \u201censuring the survival of our national symbol.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 11 is Monja Blanca Day in Guatemala, a national holiday that honors the rare white orchid, which was designated the national flower in 1934. We take this day as an opportunity to reflect on national symbols and talk to Guatemalan botanist Fredy Archila, who is committed to protecting the flower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2417,2416],"tags":[3235,3245,3251,3249,3250,1895,3252,281,3257,3238,3237,3239,3220,1039,3246,3254,3248,3217,3240,3247,3256,3244,3241,3242,3218,3258,3243,3253],"class_list":["post-23945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays-en","category-magazine","tag-archilarum","tag-botanist","tag-central-america","tag-christian-mission","tag-christianity","tag-climate-change","tag-coban","tag-colonialism","tag-creating-a-nation","tag-dia-de-la-monja-blanca","tag-estacion-experimental-de-orquideas-de-la-familia-archila","tag-february-11","tag-fredy-archila","tag-guatemala","tag-guatemalan-botanist","tag-maya-culture","tag-missionaries","tag-monja-blanca","tag-monja-blanca-day-in-guatemala","tag-myths-of-geography","tag-nation","tag-national-flower","tag-national-holiday","tag-orchid","tag-paul-richardson","tag-qeqchi-2","tag-rare-white-orchid","tag-white-nun-flower"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23946,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23945\/revisions\/23946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}