A new study suggests that orchids exploit male bees for their own purposes by imitating the scent of bee females. This little trick played by orchids relies on the instinctive urge of male bees to mate when detecting the scent of a female insect. As the male falls in the trap set by the orchid, its attempt to procrea... |
27 May 2008
07:40 GMT |
 |
|
Sex toys may be made not only of plastic; and only by humans. Nature has got its own. For humans, many flowers have an erotic symbolism, like the rose in the Western World (and this, since the ancient Greeks and Romans, who identified the rose with their goddesses of love - Aphrodite, respectively Venus), but also th... |
14 April 2008
14:06 GMT |
|
|
You may not like flowers, but if you like vanilla, you actually like ... orchids. Vanilla is the only comestible orchid and the vanilla stick is nothing else than the fermented and blackened pod of an orchid, Vanilla planifolia that is to be found in Mexico. (in fact "vanilla" means "little pod" in Spanish). Did you ... |
17 November 2007
04:02 GMT |
|
|
We do not know if dino lover boys used them to impress their girls, but dinosaurs surely enjoyed orchids before their demise, as revealed by a newfound fossil. A block of amber (fossil resin) encasing an extinct, stingless bee (Proplebeia dominicana) carrying a clump of orchid pollen on its back shows that these "mas... |
30 August 2007
04:25 GMT |
|
|
Orchids are renowned exactly for their beauty and scent. But amongst 30,000 known species, some break this rule. The most recently discovered orchid, endemic to Yosemite National Park, spreads a foul scent. It was exactly the stinky smell that attracted the attention of its re-discoverers, as the plant was first coll... |
18 July 2007
05:18 GMT |
|
|
This is the rarest and most mysterious orchid in the world and its vernacular name is the ghost orchid. Now, a specimen has been discovered growing high in an old cypress tree in Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples (southwest Florida).The Ghost Orchid (Polyrrhiza lindenii) is also called Palm Polly and White Frog Orc... |
13 July 2007
04:28 GMT |
|
|
You may not know, but if you are addicted to vanilla flavor, you're addicted to ... orchids. Because the vanilla stick is nothing else than the fermented and blackened pod of an orchid, Vanilla planifolia, that occurs naturally in ... Mexico.There are about 35,000 species of orchids in the world: about one eight... |
26 March 2007
11:50 GMT |
|
|
