The Incredible Beauty of Flowers

My wild orchid is a magnet to the bees. I imagine that they must all know the signs. Maybe a delicious whiff of pheromone on the breeze.

The information below is courtesy http://www.ttorchids.net/index.php
This is the Trinidad and Tobago Orchid Society's Data base. It is well worth visiting as they have excellent examples of species orchids that grow in our rain forests. The two below are both wild and indigenous to Trinidad.



Catasetum macrocarpum (Male Flower) Colour of sepals and petals vary from concolour green to green with wine red spotting. Lip colour varies from concolor green to bright yellow on external surface and red on internal surface.Flowers have a unique pollination mechanism. When the pollinator - usually a euglossine bee - lands on the lip a trigger mechanism on the column shoots pollen onto the back of the insect. This one has popped up on my frangipani tree.



Oncidium luridum is commonly known as Brown Bee. Colour varies from clearpale green or yellow to olive green with brown spotting, crest of lip usually has a rose purple splash. Natural spread varies from 1 to 2 cms. The flowers are appear on a long stem (5ft) that hangs down through the trees. Each spray can contain up to 100 flowers. This one is on my mango tree.





My "sexy pink". It flowers all year round unlike the orange which is seasonal. Its whole important name is heliconia chartacea from the family heliconiaceae


A close up of Pontederia cordata commonly known as pickerelweed. It is relatively new to Trinidad as far as I know. I thought it was quite exotic and considered myself quite the collector to have it; until I discovered that it is classified as a weed in the USA. What a beautiful weed!

Big blowsy beautiful cattleya. Horticultural Hussies.
Everything about them just screams overdo. But you can't help being very, very impressed with nature's coquettish behaviour.