Flowers Fool Flat-footed Flies by Faking Fungus-infected Foliage
A rare species of lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium fargesii) grows black spots that look like a fungus. But it’s not a fungus; it’s a feature, as Zong-Xin Ren of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found out during four years of research.
The lady’s slippers are generally pollinated by bees but C.fargesii is different. Over many hours [...]
World’s Smallest Orchid is Only This Big: O
The blossom of the orchid is only 2.1 mm wide – approximately the size of the O in the title of this post.
American scientist Lou Jost found the tiny flower by accident among the roots of a larger plant that he had collected from the Cerro Candelaria reserve in the eastern Andes.
The petals are transparent [...]
