Orchid flowers in common
Although orchid flowers often look very different from one another, they have one thing in common. All orchids have six symmetrical parts that most people would be tempted to call petals. It’s not six; it’s two sets of three. The first three known as sepals, one on top (the dorsal) and two at either lower side (lateral), and the other three are technically the petals. Yes even in this simple anatomy orchids can seem baffling, for in typical orchid exceptions, the various parts can be outlandishly exaggerated, or the two lateral sepals can fuse together, or all three can even fuse into a cup, with the petals almost disappearing altogether. All this can be very confusing to someone trying to decipher the parts.
On of the petals, however, is very often spectacular in shape, color, pattern, and/or size. That petal, located almost always at the bottom of the flower, is called the lip, or labellum. Orchid buds actually twist around 180 degrees during development to ensure that the lip is lowermost. Since most other types of flowers don’t perform this twist, orchids are frequently mistakenly displayed in vases and in pictures upside down, with the conspicuous lip at top. In fact, the designations for orientation used in describing orchid flowers (dorsal, lateral and so forth) are in relation to this bottommost lip.
Orchid flowers in common
Posts
