I’m a mouthy little specimen,
with pheromone breath enticing,
come, crawl up my labellum,
to my anther so inviting.
Let my petals guide your flight,
there’s just two, but sepals aid,
come on, come in, don’t fight,
the stigma’s worth the pollen paid.
This is a chiloglottis (chilo – lips, glottis – mouth of the windpipe) orchid (orchis -testicles) or in old English, the ballockwort (yes, bollock herb), more commonly known as a bronze wasp orchid. I found a small cluster of them yesterday, uphill a bit from the greenhoods in a slightly drier area. In my search to identify it’s species I’ve read a bit about orchids and orchid anatomy, and, really, who names these things??? I can imagine a lot of botanists in their big brown boots (the botany students all wore big brown boots when I was at uni) all sniggering and nudging each other.Â
Here it is in profile:
Kate, The first thing I read this morning and how pleasant it was to start my day. Your photos were so interesting too. Thanks.
Thank you Al! 🙂 I hope the rest of your day was good.
😂 A cheeky little ditty for a potty mouthed plant!
🙂
Dirty botanists 🤣
I guess at least they’re imaginative. Albeit in a somewhat worrying way. Physicists are more straight forward – there’s the strong force because it’s strong, the weak force because it’s not, and dark matter is… yep, dark.
spice
nice choice voice
Super interesting! I know somebody who is studying fungus gnats (little fly like critters that pollinate orchids). She’s not a botanist (being an insect studying person the name of which seems to be in the wrong file in my brain) so she’s lacking the big brown boots. But she’s definitely got the sense of humour. 🙂
Entomologist! Got it! phew
😀
what sort of boots do entomologists wear?
I did read that these orchids smelt like fungus wasps.