Unique Orchid Characteristics
One of the most striking features of the orchid flower is one (often) showy, large petal, call the lip or labellum (Fig 1). Another key character of the orchid family is known as the column (Fig. 2). The column is a fusion of reproductive parts (anthers, filaments, stigmas and styles) that are normally separate in other plants. Orchids, like all monocots, have their parts in three and veins parallel. Pollen is not dusty, but massed together in hard or waxy structures called pollinia. They ovary is located below the petals. Seed capsules produce 1,000 to over 1,000,000 tiny dust-like seeds (Fig. 3), which have no endosperm (stored food). In the wild, nutrition is provided by mycorrhiza(e), which is a symbiotic relationship between plant and fungus. The mycorrhizae invades the developing orchid embryo, and provides sugars and carbohydrates necessary for the orchid seed to grow. Without the mycorrhizae, orchid seeds cannot germinate in the wild.

Figure 1. large showy labellum

                        Figure 2. column

Figure 3. seed capsule x 35

Illustrations Copyright 1994 CMVLeBlanc; used by permission.