Thanks to a comment in a research article within the SIGNA newsletter (Species Iris Group of North America), I learned this morning that one of my holy grail plants recently earned a devious title.Orchids have been the long-known tricksters which, through appearance and smell, convince bees to try the hanky-panky with them, of the genus Ophrys, one species of Seraphias.
Warning: the following link contains apian* pornography.
Andrena on Ophrys action on youtube.
Once you've gotten over the fact that you have just watched a video online of a bee dry-humping a flower, note gracefully and with wonder how the orchid actually affixes a fancy gluepad-strut-and-pollen-bag device to the back of the bee. Fantastic, eh?But there is one plant which is clever enough that is not an orchid which some of us know and love already- a certain rare bearded iris, in fact- Iris paradoxa.(1) I am tickled to learn this little raunchy fact about one of my favourite plants.
* bee-related
1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3497092/
Lastly, know this blog will swing back into its less-seen theme of travel for a time this winter.