The Orchidaceae are a diverse and widespread family of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant commonly known as the orchid family.

Along with the Asteraceae they are one of the two largest families of flowering plants. The Orchidaceae have about 28000 currently accepted species distributed in about 763 genera. The determination of which family is larger is still under debate because verified data on the members of such enormous families are continually in flux. Regardless the number of orchid species nearly equals the number of bony fishes and is more than twice the number of bird species and about four times the number of mammal species. The family also encompasses about 6–11% of all seed plants. The largest genera are Bulbophyllum (2000 species) Epidendrum (1500 species) Dendrobium (1400 species) and Pleurothallis (1000 species).

The family also includes Vanilla (the genus of the vanilla plant) Orchis (type genus) and many commonly cultivated plants such as Phalaenopsis and Cattleya. Moreover since the introduction of tropical species into cultivation in the 19th century horticulturists have produced more than 100000 hybrids and cultivars.

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