An orchid that persuades wasps to date outside their species
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An orchid that persuades wasps to date outside their species

Margaret Moran at My Growing Passion has put up a photo of Cryptostylis subulata the Large Tongue Orchid that she has growing in her garden. Her post includes an explanation of how it reproduces. It relies on wasps to pollinate the flower, so to pull in the wasp close enough it mimics a female wasp. The details are at her site.

Alun Salt

Alun (he/him) is the Producer for Botany One. It's his job to keep the server running. He's not a botanist, but started running into them on a regular basis while working on writing modules for an Interdisciplinary Science course and, later, helping teach mathematics to Biologists. His degrees are in archaeology and ancient history.

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