Bee Orchids appear occasionally in the Cowbar grassland and verges, but rarely in the same places each year. This year they are back in a few spots on the grassy side of the bund.
Nature is full of species that deceive in order to survive or flourish. An octopus can change colour with astonishing speed to match its background. Possums pretend to be dead while stinking to avoid being eaten. There’s a plant that appears occasionally on Cowbar that belongs on that list – the bee orchid. We found three this year.
Ophrys apifera, the bee orchid, gets its botanical name from two Greek words for ‘eyebrow’ and ‘bee-bearing’. Women in ancient Rome possibly used the plant to darken their eyebrows, perhaps for the same reason that this orchid evolved to resemble a bee – i.e., to attract the attention of males. While producing an appropriate scent, the orchid developed a ‘labellum’, shaped and patterned like the abdomen of a specific bee species. This provides a landing pad for an interested suitor and an opportunity for the transfer of pollen.
In the UK, however, that particular species of bee doesn’t exist but, to quote the film Jurassic Park, “life finds a way”. UK bee orchids may try to seduce without success but nonetheless they do reproduce. In the absence of suitable suitors, they propagate by transferring pollen from the male to the female part [the stigma] of the same plant. The pollen is attached to a thin stalk right above the stigma. This stalk dries, shrinks and that causes it to bend until it touches the stigma and, hey presto, pollination! Life finds a way…
