Search
eco

Orchids

Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae, a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants, living in diverse habitats on every continent except Antarctica. The world's richest diversity of orchid genera and species is in the tropics. Many species are epiphytes, living on trees. The flowers and their pollination mechanisms are highly specialized, attracting insect pollinators by colour, pattern, scent, pheromones, and sometimes by mimicking female insects. Orchids have very small seeds, relying on fungal partners for germination. Some orchids have no leaves, either photosynthesizing with their roots or relying entirely on fungal partners for food.

From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Research Mentions

PubMed → · research article

A global bioregionalisation for orchids.

If you've ever tried to grow an orchid and watched it sulk, knowing it evolved in a distinct clim...

mail

Weekly discoveries in your inbox

Get the week's most interesting plant science — one email, every Saturday. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

You'll get a confirmation email — check spam if you don't see it within 5 minutes.

Taxonomy

Scientific: Orchidaceae
Family: Orchidaceae
Genus: Orchidaceae
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Asparagales