Escape the winter cold and enter the steamy Princess of Wales Conservatory, at Kew Gardens, for a truly beautiful orchid festival.
Orchids use extraordinary means to tempt, exploit and attract their pollinators: Colour, shape and smell all play a role in ensuring their survival, making them one of the most successful and diverse plant families on Earth.
Lara Jewitt, head of the tropical nursery, said: “Orchids have some jaw-dropping attraction mechanisms: they can dress themselves up as female insects and lure male pollinators to the flower with stunning looks and smells.
"This tricks male insects into copulating with them and brings about pollination. It’s an incredibly cunning and bewitching facet of these incredible plants.”
Visitors will discover that orchids are not particular colours or shapes by accident, it is all by design, and dictated by the discerning pollinator they need to attract.
The event, is held in the Princess of Wales Conservatory from 7 February until 8 March, 2015.
Comments