orchids
grrlscientist | May 18, 2009tags: NYC, Upper East Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature, image of the day
Yellow orchid, Oncidium species.
Photographed on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, NYC.
Image: GrrlScientist, 18 May 2009 [larger view].
There are several hundred recognized Oncidium species, but the experts reclassify plants in this group often, so I am not sure which species this is. Additionally, Oncidium species have been freely hybridized in captivity.
edyong | February 10, 2009This is the fourth of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial.
Charles Darwin was a visionary in more ways than one. In 1862, Darwin was studying a Malagasy orchid called Angraecum sesquipedale, whose nectar stores lie inaccessibly at the bottom of a 30cm long spur (tube). Darwin predicted that the flower was pollinated by a moth with tongue long enough to raid the spur.
Few people believed him, but in 1903, zoologists discovered Darwin's predicted moth, Xanthopan morgani praedicta, and it did indeed have a very long tongue. Darwin accurately predicted the…