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Botanical Wednesday: Go f___ yourself.

This orchid actually does just that. Explicit, detailed diagrams of it fertilizing itself below. Tell the children to close their eyes!

(via National Geographic)

(Also on Sb)

Rock out at the Reason Rally » « I think his money is safe

Comments

  11. Drosera says

    This is your typical overhyped research. The European orchid Ophrys apifera has long been known to do the same thing.

    See here for example.

  13. John Morales says

    Drosera:

    This is your typical overhyped research.

    Really.

    Care to try to justify how a statement of fact constitutes over-hype?

    (PS I doubt that typical means what you apparently think it means)

  14. Phoenician in a time of Romans says

    Something primates have been practicing for since before they came down from the trees!

    (Come to think of it, it may have been the reason for many of them dropping from trees)

  15. Djahn says

    “So what colors or smells would it use to attract itself?”

    Brown and beer farts seem to work for me…

  16. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    Botanists use the word “self” as a verb, and can be aggitated into using that verb as a suggestion.

  19. Drosera says

    @ John Morales,

    Care to try to justify how a statement of fact constitutes over-hype?

    Which part of the word ‘first’ don’t you understand?

  21. ikesolem says

    That pollen looks ideally positioned for a bee, wasp or other insect. It’s only if such an insect doesn’t show up that self-fertilization occurs. But did seeds develop?

  23. Nick says

    Here’s a little party trick for the botanically obsessed (like me). Flick the little anther cap off of an orchid. A the base of the two pollinia (yes, they look like balls. Orchids were named after testicles, but not these ones. The bulbs of certain European terrestrial orchids have a striking resemblance to gonads. Orchis = (Greek or Latin – not sure) for testicles), there is a sticky pad. If you put this on you finger nail, within half an hour the orientation of the pollinia will have changed from being upright to being horizontal. Also, the area around the anther cap will darken within a day.