Posted on 06/21/2006 5:27:28 PM PDT by Loyalist
An orchid growing in harsh conditions defies gravity to twist its male sexual organs 360 degrees to fertilize its female organ, Chinese scientists have discovered.
The pink-flowered orchid, Holcoglossum amesianum, grows on tree trunks at altitudes of 1,200 to 2,000 metres in China's Yunnan province.
The plant flowers during the drought season from February to April, when there is no wind.
Under such conditions, the plant can't use the traditional means of mating used in flowering plants, such as relying on insects or other animals, wind, or gravity to carry the pollen.
In Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, LaiQiang Huang of the centre for biotechnology and biomedicine at Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, China, and colleagues report what they say is a new type of self-pollination mechanism.
"Without pollinators for outcrossing, the necessity of ensuring reproductive success must outweigh the potential adverse effects of inbreeding," the study's authors concluded.
"The present self-contained pollination mechanism is likely to be an adaptation to the orchid’s dry and insect-scarce habitat, and may be widespread among species growing in similar environments."
Unlike other self-pollinating plants, the orchid doesn't appear to use sticky fluids or other methods to ensure the pollen reaches the egg. The flower still has signs of features for cross-pollination, but it no longer secretes nectar or odour to use them.
Instead, the pollen-bearing anther uncovers itself and rotates through 360 degrees to insert pollen into its female cavity, the stigma.
The researchers examined more than 1,900 flowers over three flowering seasons. All used the same pollination strategy.
Is this flower from Nantucket?
Is this legal?
Does it ever leave the house?
And here I thought dogs had it easy.
Most amazing is the fact that someone would use the term "bisexual" in this case.
Are there mirrors on the ceiling?
I wouldn't.
FWIW Ping!
Yuck.
Ooooh! I LIKE THAT!!!!
What would Nero Wolfe say?
Wouldn't that be 180 degrees instead of 360? (Reminds me of the old joke about a dog. The punch line being, "Because he can".)
Bisexual Orchid Ping
I can do something similar to that...
I reckon it is de-flowered after that...
This is nothing new, folks have been told ta go screw themselves for ages.
Billy Batts, is that you?
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