Anyone can grow sweetpeas.
I constructed a bamboo cane wigwam for them in my first year of gardening because I thought that's what you were supposed to do, but it was unecessary. In the second year, they sprouted at the site where the dried peas which produced their parents were sown the year before, and clambered through my winter-flowering dwarf quince bush filling it with summer blooms.
I only noticed the similarity when I looked at this photo three months after they had faded ...
Why wish for orchids ? |
Not that I'm a fan of orchids. My mother couldn't throw her spent orchids away, and now I don't know what to do with them.
When I was small, orchids were almost sacred in our house. I was always being told off for sticking my fingers in the roots though I was wise enough to not even breath on the flowers. I couldn't understand why they were so precious when there were plenty of flowers just as pretty in the garden - I could just about get away with plucking those petals to make perfume.
These days it seems I can't escape from them. Orchids can be found in the dentist's reception, my local Chinese restaurant, in the DIY store and at the supermarket, cloned by tissue culture for mass production I presume.
Orchids on sale in a food hall |
I was just trying to find out if orchids and sweet peas were related when I found an anecdote which warmed the cockles of my scientific heart :
Apparently, during his travels Charles Darwin predicted that the comet orchid in Madagascar had evolved a spur over a foot long with nectar at the base in order to lure a specific pollinator with a proboscis of equal length. People thought this idea was absolutely ridiculous, until after his death when the adequately equipped nocturnal Sphinx moth was discovered in the same region.
This isn't the only example which illustrates how well orchids, which are among the first flowering plants on earth, develop relationships to ensure their species survive - a fine example of a team player in the plant world.
The simple process of germination can only take place with the help of an infecting fungus which provides nutrition as tiny orchid seeds don't contain an endosperm food source.
Moth orchids have mutated over generations to be attractive (in an opposite sex kind of way) to their desired pollinators, while paph orchids offer them a drinking cup.
Epiphytic orchids are sometimes mistakenly labelled as parasites because they climb trees to increase their exposure to sunlight. They sprout root-like structures from their stems to cling to the surface of the bark but they absorb nutrients from rainwater not their hosts.
Having learnt about some of the adaptations orchids have made during their evolution, I now find them quite intriguing. Actually, the Darwin story was enough to change my mind. It seems unfair that the mass-produced specimens in the supermarket wont get that opportunity.
Hope this is an orchid |
PS. Orchids and sweet-peas are not related.
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