Minorvogonpoet writes:

We found this Tongue Orchid on the overgrown lawn of our old house in France. If you look carefully, you can see a small stripy bee in the flower. When my husband first saw bees in the orchid flowers, he thought they had crawled in to pollinate the plant and got stuck, so he gently removed them. Next day, there were bees in the flowers again. So what were the bees up to?


I think the answer is sex! Apparently tongue orchids produce flowers that look or smell like female bees or wasps, to entice the male in. The flowers get well pollinated!'

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Minorvogonpoet

24.06.19 Front Page

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