Today I want to share with you one of my favourite stories of co-evolution, and how sometimes the right answer can seem the most unlikely. For those of you who don’t know, Charles Darwin spent a lot of time researching orchids, to the point where he even published a book called Fertilisation of Orchids (or its full name, On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects, and On the Good Effects of Intercrossing). At the time, 19th century Europe just caught wind of orchids, and it was all the rage to collect them. Wealthy collectors payed hefty sums to purchase them from explorers who brought them back from tropical regions of the world. As they did not yet understand their reproductive cycle, which we now know requires fungi to grow from seed, the plants had to be taken and kept alive for long, often unfavorably cold voyages. Early terrariums, dubbed “Wardian cases,” were often used to protect the plants during these times. They dubbed this Victorian orchid-collecting phenomena “orchidelirium“.