The Orchid Athenaeum
by Spadecaller
Title
The Orchid Athenaeum
Artist
Spadecaller
Medium
Digital Art - Digital & Photographic Art
Description
The quintessence of floral beauty, orchids have long inspired works of art, tales of adventure, and scientific discovery. Although scientists contend that the origin of orchids on earth date back about 200 million years ago, its recorded history began in Japan or China just 3,000 or 4,000 years ago. In addition to their wonderful colors, patterns, and shapes, the exquisite orchid is a unique botanical phenomenon.
Orchids have no specific lifespan. Under the right conditions, they can live for more than a century. Undoubtedly, there are many orchids more than a hundred years old growing in the wild. At the Singapore Botanical Garden, a giant tiger orchid specimen (Grammatophyllum speciosum) was planted in 1861- even before the botanical garden was constructed.
Botanists agree that one feature above all differentiates the orchid from virtually all other flowering plants: the fusion of the male portion of the flower (stamen) and female portion (pistil) into one structure called the column that usually protrudes conspicuously form the center.
Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology was a passionate orchid collector. Darwin amassed a vast collection of rare specimens from around the world. Even before 1859 when he wrote “On the Origin of Species”, Darwin knew that every orchid species was endowed with unique anatomical and physiological variations that enabled the plant to thrive in diverse habitats -able to rely upon special insect pollinators. The purpose of the orchid’s flowers, he knew, was to entice insects to visit them, enabling them to inadvertently transfer pollen from one individual to another. Nonetheless, some orchid shapes were so elaborate, that they seemed to defy Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Darwin studied many orchids and discovered a multitude of ways that each plant was equipped to lure bees or moths that could interact with their unique reproductive structures. His research even led him to predict the existence of a subspecies of the Morgan’s Sphinx moth that was not discovered until many years after his death.
“The Orchid Athenaeum” is a hand-painted digital still life and photo composite created in Spadecaller’s Florida Studio on 3/3/2023.
Uploaded
March 3rd, 2023
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