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“.

I always joke with friends that fungi can do anything the scientist puts their mind to, or the opposite if they haven’t pleased the fungal gods that day. They’re also quite fun because they ruin the party when you get into those “what is a species” and “what is a cell” debates with people. Fungi honestly blur, cross, destroy, and defecate on those lines. They’re everywhere and they do what they want. Although maybe I shouldn’t say that, it makes them sound selfish when they also have potential to be very cooperative, generous, and communicative. We wouldn’t have this lush world colonized with land plants if it weren’t for the fungi aiding with nutrient intake and clearing old debris. But today I want to share something I personally found unique– photosynthetic mycelium.

While IDing plants, I’ve noticed that sometimes when looking back at photos I’ve taken, the leaves have little bumps on them. I’ve always just assumed it’s a fungus growing or a deformity of the leaf. That is, until now, where I was informed those bumps actually have a name, and they can be caused by a wide variety of etiologies. They’re called “galls” or “cecidia” and are essentially growths/tumors that can form on any part of the plant, sometimes due to irritation and sometimes due to the organism of cause living inside/promoting the formation of it.

Typically defined by their autotrophic nature, plants are known for their ability to use photosynthesis via their chloroplasts to survive. This is pretty well-known and undisputed– even a kindergartner could tell you that plants are green and feed from the sun! But what if I told you there were plants out there that didn’t do this? Dun dun dun!

Although not many species have this feature, some plants actually don’t have chlorophyll pigments. The one in particular I want to tell you about today is called the Ghost Pipe Plant (Monotropa uniflora). This plant is a type of mycoheterotroph, which basically means that it feeds off of fungi rather than using the sunlight or other sources for sustenance. For the most part, they stay underground unless they are trying to seed.

I thought I’d share an interesting species today.

I was watching some bird videos from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and found one of the Vogelkop bowerbird (Amblyornis inornata). It primarily lives in Western New Guinea, Indonesia, which made me wonder if it was part of the “Lost World” findings that went on in that area. Sadly, it looks like the only bowerbird included in that was the golden-fronted bowerbird (Amblyornis flavifrons). Bowerbirds in general live in Australia and New Guinea, with twenty species, both individual and shared, between the both of them. Things like size and egg number range depending on the species, but fancy courtship efforts seem to be the common theme among all. I am not going to go into much detail about it, but there are different types of bowers they build, vocal mimics they do, special ways of arranging their chosen items, sabotaging other males’ bowers, and more. I read that some species even arrange the items to create optical illusions and forced perceptions. 

Wanna hear something mind-blowing? There’s a good chance every orchid flower you have ever seen was actually upside down.

I recently learned about resupination, which is a term used to describe plants that rotate their leaves or flowers upside down… err right side up, technically? This is practically the norm for orchid flowers. I was going to post an orchid time-lapse video that showed this (as I originally thought they all have funky twisting patterns as they physically open), but I looked and looked to no avail. So, after doing some research, it seems that this step can occur before or during blooming. (It kind of reminds me of how humans can have situs inversus, although I’m sure those individuals with it are very glad it happened in the womb.) Now, what I want to know is if this occurs during bud development, or just in a stage before the blooming is outwardly visible to bystanders but after the bud is already developed. I can confirm that this does not happen after opening, though.

Hello! I decided to share an essay I wrote for my Environmental Physiology class as I found the topic rather interesting.
The prompt: “Discuss the evolution of a toxin or toxin delivery mechanism in an animal, plant, or other group of organisms. Explain the potential adaptive value of the toxin and discuss its potential cost to the organism.”

Orchids are really freaking cool. Although not my favourite plant nor flower, they manage to captivate me with their beauty, and well, just really wicked evolved traits. Once the libraries open up again (thanks, coronavirus), I will look for a more detailed book on them, but for right now, I have a mix of Internet and previously obtained knowledge to share.

The Orchidaceae are a family of plants more commonly known as orchids. Many know them for their regal yet tropical look and their long lasting flowers. There are over 28,000 species of them according to our friend, Wikipedia the Great, and typically are classified as “orchids” by their anatomy. I could not find actual criteria for an orchid, but it pretty much seems that most non-orchids are not smart enough to bamboozle us, so anatomy is a good baseline. If the flower can make it past that test, there’s a good chance they’re the real deal. I think if we want any more substantial criteria, we’d have to go ask a taxonomist– they probably do have an actual checklist for what qualifies.