What is an orchid?
Orchids are widely considered to be the most highly evolved of all flowering plants. Since I am doing the writing here,
I will continue to consider them as such.
What makes something an orchid?
An orchid is a flowering plant that exhibits a unique reproductive strategy.
All orchids have both the male and female reproductive structures fused into a single structure commonly called a "column".
They also share some other floral characteristics including a highly modified petal called a lip or labellum.
Think of it as a landing pad for bugs
These things are easy to see in most of the common orchids although some orchids flowers are so small or strange.
The orchid family Orchidaceae is among the most diverse families of flowering plants with about 25,000 species known to science so far which makes identifying orchids difficult.
They come from every continent except Antarctica though a substantial majority of orchid species are tropical.
They range widely in size
Grammatophyllum speciosum can weigh in at more than a ton while there are many miniature orchids that in many cases are only a few millimetres high and they all have different flowers.
Paphiopedilum sanderianum flowers have three-foot-long 90 cm red petals.
Masdevallias have petals so small as to be nearly invisible.
Comments