#drakaea

[drhoz]

#1700 - Drakaea glyptodon - King-in-His-Carriage

One of the smallest of the orchids growing at the holiday property near Yallingup, and a wonderful example of a Hammer Orchid. 

Like the other Hammer Orchids, this species is pollinated by male Thynnid wasps, in ths case Zaspilothynnus trilobatus. The fleshy labellum at left looks and smells like one of the flightless females, and the horny wasps flies down to pick her up (literally) and then gets swung up against the rest of the flower by the ingenious hinge. He then flies off, confused and slightly concussed, to try his luck at the next one. 

The genus is named after Sarah ("Ducky") Drake, a botantical illustrator of the 19th Century, and the species after the giant South American armadillo. It’s the most widespread and common of the Hammer Orchids, but is still restricted to the SW corner of Australia, in sandy and gravelly soil near winter swamps.

[melangle]

Warty hammer orchid, this guy is super weird and hardly looks like an orchid at all. The warty labelum is covered in glands that secrete wasp pheromones to attact thynnid wasps which then try to fly away with what they think is the one of thier wingless females, when the do the hinge causes the labelum to swing up and slam them into the polination zone.

Drakaea Lividia

[melangle]

Warty hammer orchid, this guy is super weird and hardly looks like an orchid at all. The warty labelum is covered in glands that secrete wasp pheromones to attact thynnid wasps which then try to fly away with what they think is the one of thier wingless females, when the do the hinge causes the labelum to swing up and slam them into the polination zone.

Drakaea Lividia

[orquidofilia]

Let’s commemorate April Fool’s Day with true facts about a deceptive orchid:

Pollination of Australian hammer orchid Drakaea sp. through sexual deception of male Thynninae wasps.