Through most of January, Paphiopedilum villosum ‘Vixen’ sat in splendid, award-winning bloom in Sweet Briar’s greenhouse in the care of visiting assistant professor of philosophy Dylan Wittkower.

Dylan Wittkower stands with his original acrylic on canvas on the wall in his Benedict office.Wittkower, who became interested in orchids while a doctoral candidate at Vanderbilt University, raised ‘Vixen’ from a seedling. It is one individual of one species of one genus among the many genera – he doesn’t care to know exactly how many – in his collection of plants belonging to the Orchidaceae family.

Most of them are happily over-wintering in the greenhouse, along with others belonging to the College. The accommodations are a perk Wittkower acknowledged after his Paphiopedilum villosum – which belongs to a subfamily of orchids commonly called ladyslippers – was awarded a 78-point highly commended certificate for flower quality from the American Orchid Society, thus earning the right to its own name. Wittkower chose ‘Vixen.’

“It’s in honor of my current employer – although not merely that, or at least not in some perfunctory way,” he said. “That is, for example, were I still at Tech, there would still be no way I ever would have even considered naming it ‘Hokie Bird.’ ”

Bulbophyllum echinolabium is an epiphyte, meaning it grows on trees. While it was in bloom over the past weeks, Wittkower placed the odoriferous bloom in the biology department, where passersby tried to name that smell and record their observations on a clipboard. Opinions were mixed, but some detected a fishy scent.Since his arrival at Sweet Briar in the fall, Wittkower’s distinctive suits and neat beard have made him a recognizable figure on campus. A scholar of Karl Marx, he is steeped in classical German philosophy and value theory, which deals with ethics, aesthetics and political philosophy. In his research specialty, he applies both to the philosophy of technology.

The Palo Alto, Calif., native discovered botany in part because of philosophy – which is still his first love. Studying plants began as a diversion from his dissertation. It led him to volunteer in Vanderbilt’s greenhouse and to the weird world of orchids.

“I became particularly interested in phylogeny, and Orchidaceae is very interesting in this respect, as it is a young family with great diversity and incomplete speciation,” he said.

Phylogeny refers to the evolutionary history of organisms, and orchids – already hugely diverse – can form new and strange hybrids from different genera. The flowers have three petals, one of which usually differs from the others. This third petal, called the labellum, typically determines how the plant is pollinated, and it accounts for much of Orchidaceae’s astounding variety.

The ladyslipper’s pouch is one example of the labellum, but visitors to Wittkower’s flickr Web site can see firsthand its breadth of forms. Viewers may also notice flowers that seem to have more than three petals. That’s because orchids have three sepals, too, which also vary. Some are identical to the petals.

The proper name for Wittkower’s award-winning bloom is Paphiopedilum villosum 'Vixen' HCC/AOS.In the greenhouse, Wittkower also pointed out orchids’ diverse root systems and leaf structures. The flowers, in various stages of bloom, are big and small, robust and delicate, fringed, undulating, tubular, speckled and sparkly. Some are fragrant and others emit odd smells or none at all. He demonstrated how one, the ‘Queen of the Night,’ gives off the scent of cloves in low light.

Orchids grow on trees, in soil, clinging to rocks and in decaying vegetation on the forest floor. Although most are tropical, they grow worldwide and in every U.S. state, including Alaska. In the Eastern states, including Virginia, downy rattlesnake plantains (Goodyera pubescens) are easy to find.

Wittkower knew his citron- and mahogany-colored ‘Vixen’ bloom was a good one. The decision to have it judged was a practical matter. “I just happened to have time that day,” he said, explaining that the American Orchid Society opens its regional centers for judging once a month. He drove the plant to Greensboro, N.C.

From his research, Wittkower believes ‘Vixen’ is the 15th of the species to receive an AOS flower quality award and the first since 2002. The Paphiopedilum genus is difficult to mass-produce because it cannot be cloned and must be replicated by division, he said.

The resulting short supplies of offspring from award-winning individuals such as ‘Vixen’ make them potentially valuable to other collectors. But Wittkower isn’t seeing dollar signs. “I am much more likely to trade divisions of this plant for divisions of other awarded clones, in order to continue to work towards a high-quality breeding collection.”

Cirrhopetalum Sandi Ting has a hinged labellum, which moves in the wind and attracts pollinators. When the insect walks up the labellum far enough, it rocks back on the hinge like a seesaw, slamming the pollinator against the pollenia. The insect struggles to free itself, taking the pollenia along with it.Wittkower keeps orchids in the window of his Benedict office, rotating them as they bloom. They add color to the room, along with a painting hanging behind a desk he says is chaotic in appearance only. The acrylic on canvas is his own work, but painting is just an occasional pastime, he said.

More frequently, he can be found recording classic texts of Western thinkers for the Web site LibriVox. Volunteer readers record public-domain works, making them available to download as free audio books. People can and do use the recordings any way they want, such as a posting by “BonoboBill” on YouTube titled “Schopenhauer: On Noise.”

Wittkower is heard reading the text with precise intonation as time-lapsed video of a grim cityscape rolls. He thinks it’s great that someone has derived a creative video from his recording of Arthur Schopenhauer’s work. He’s also not bothered that people sell his recordings on eBay.

“I’ve made a fundamental commitment to education and to trying to bring about an understanding of these classic texts,” he said. “I want our culture to be accessible to us in as many ways as possible, and these works are often forgotten.”

He found LibriVox through his doctoral research on the philosophy of technology. It centers on the growing unauthorized use of intellectual property in a digital age, and responses by government and industry which he says use increasingly harsh means to limit public access to such property.

On the LibriVox site, Wittkower writes that his research has made him into a “public-domain and open culture activist,” noting that, “My work here is motivated by these ethico-political commitments.”

He’s been motivated to record 20 works and is at work on nearly a dozen more.