Orchids are a very diverse group of plants from all climates except the arctic's and who knows... Many of those seen in garden centres and online shops tend to be hybrids between two plants often but not always of the same group.
In orchids that produce pollinia, pollination happens as some variant of the following. When the pollinator enters into the flower, it touches a viscidium, which promptly sticks to its body, generally on the head or abdomen.
The orchid flower, like most flowers of monocots, has two whorls of sterile elements. The outer whorl has three sepals and the inner whorl has three petals. The sepals are usually very similar to the petals, but may be completely distinct.
As an apomorphy of the clade, orchid flowers are primitively zygomorphic (bilaterally symmetrical), although in some genera like Mormodes, Ludisia, Macodes this kind of symmetry may be difficult to notice.
Orchidaceae are well known for the many structural variations in their flowers.Some orchids have single flowers but most have a racemose inflorescence, sometimes with a large number of flowers.
The complex mechanisms which orchids evolve to achieve cross-pollination were investigated by Charles Darwin and described in his 1862 book Fertilisation of Orchids.
The number of orchid species equals more than twice the number of bird species, and about four times the number of mammal species. It also encompasses about 6–11% of all seed plants.


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