A corner of paradise.....

Posted by Japanalia (Yokohama, Japan) on 23 February 2009 in Plant & Nature and Portfolio.

"The Orchidaceae is a large, ancient family of perennial plants with one fertile stamen and a three-petaled flower. One petal is unlike the other two. In most orchid species this petal is enlarged into a pouch or lip and is the most conspicuous part of the flower. There are more than thirty thousand known orchid species, and there may be thousands more that haven't yet been discovered and maybe thousands that once lived on earth and are now extinct.
Humans have created another hundred thousand hybrids by cross-fertilizing one species with another OR by crossing different hybrids to one another in plant-breeding labs.
(from Susan Orlean's book "The Orchid Thief")

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