Sexual deception in Australian orchids
Your chance to catch a highlight of Botany 2020.
Plant Science from Cell Biology to Ecosystems
Your chance to catch a highlight of Botany 2020.
Selection on duplicated plant volatile genes is thought to have enabled the evolution of floral volatiles crucial to plant-insect interactions.
It’s not enough to mimic a female – you have to do it well.
The Chiloglottis trapeziformis orchid attracts male wasp pollinators using chiloglottones, a newly discovered class of volatile substances.
A single species of male gnat (Mycetophilidae) visits and pollinates the rewardless flowers of P. sanguinea. The gnats often show probing copulatory behaviour on the labellum, leading to its triggering and the temporary entrapment of the gnat in the flower.