MARC HACHADOURIAN: Coming into this room, for an insect,
might be just as overwhelming as it is for our visitors.
There's so much color, pattern, and fragrance in here--
LUKE GROSKIN: That depending on what type of species you are,
you might be drawn to an orchid--
MARC HACHADOURIAN: That may have spots, hairs, warts,
or even smell really unpleasant.
LUKE GROSKIN: Or you could gravitate towards--
MARC HACHADOURIAN: Something sweet, perhaps,
looking for a nectar reward.
LUKE GROSKIN: The sensuous sea of orchids just
might cause you to bug out.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: They're probably
one of the most diverse groups of flowering plants
with over 30,000 naturally occurring species--
LUKE GROSKIN: Dozens of which are
on display at the New York Botanical Gardens Annual Orchid
Show.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: So I have a lot of children under my care.
LUKE GROSKIN: Marc Hachadourian is the garden's curator
of orchids, a responsibility that borders on obsession.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: I've been growing orchids now
for over 30 years, so they do have a little bit of control
and a little bit of power over me.
But it's something that I'm willing to submit
to because I just, orchids are just such
an important part of my life.
LUKE GROSKIN: Mark isn't alone in his compulsion.
These plants have evolved the incredible ability
to convince many species to do their bidding.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: Everything we see and appreciate
about orchids in terms of the flowers themselves,
the colors, the patterns, are really
all there to achieve reproduction.
They are the reproductive organs of plants.
LUKE GROSKIN: Orchids turn their pollinators
into slaves to their desires, drawing them
in with unseen forces.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: There are orchids
that smell like roses, there are orchids that
smell like jasmine, and there are many orchids that
smell like you should be checking
the bottoms of your shoes for something
you might have stepped in.
LUKE GROSKIN: Not particularly alluring to us,
but flies love it.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: Some orchids will
produce chemical fragrances that mimic the pheromones of insects
in order to bring the insect to the flower itself.
LUKE GROSKIN: Others might mimic the aroma
of the perfect nursery for a pollinator's larvae.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: A group of South American orchids,
this particular genus dracula, actually
produces some of the same chemical compounds produced
by mushrooms.
LUKE GROSKIN: That you might see a monkey face on the bloom
is purely coincidental.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: But to its pollinator,
it sees a mushroom that it would lay its eggs on for its larva
to survive.
LUKE GROSKIN: This type of deceptive lure
is a hallmark adaptation of the orchid family.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: The lip or labellum
is a specialized petal found on the flower of an orchid.
The lip or labellum can be modified into strange colors
and patterns to guide a pollinator towards its nectar
rewards like a runway for a visiting pollinator.
Or in some extreme cases, the lip or labellum
can be modified into a completely different shape.
It can resemble even the female of a species of insect, which
actually will trick the males into attempting
to mate with the flower--
LUKE GROSKIN: And end up fertilizing the flower instead.
And this level of trickery turns the orchid
into a specialist dependent on its pollinator.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: In some cases,
it may even be a one-to-one relationship in which there
is only one species of insect or animal
that pollinates that one species of orchid.
The most famous example being the Darwin Star
Orchid that has this long nectar spur at the back of the flower.
He theorized that since it was a white flower, only fragrant
at night, and with that long nectar spur,
it was pollinated by a long tongued moth
with a 12-inch long tongue.
LUKE GROSKIN: Lo and behold, the moth
was discovered 42 years after Darwin's prediction.
Special relationships like these hinge on an orchid's ability
to transfer their pollen from one plant to another.
To ensure this, orchids have evolved a unique method
of distributing their pollen.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: The pollen itself on an orchid is not
granular or dust-like, but fused into a solid mass--
LUKE GROSKIN: Known as the pollinium.
This shotgun approach to fertilization
has obvious benefits.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: By concentrating
all of your pollen into one solid mass,
you don't just get a little bit from flower to flower.
You get an efficient transfer of a lot of genetic material.
LUKE GROSKIN: And orchids typically need a lot of pollen
to fertilize all of their seeds.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: A single seed pod of an orchid
can have upwards of 250,000, or in some cases up
to over one million, seeds in a single seed pod.
LUKE GROSKIN: You may have seen and enjoyed
one of these seed pods in the form of a vanilla bean.
As with most orchid species, these seeds
are tiny and actually lack the nutrients to grow on their own.
And why should they, when they can get those
from another organism?
MARC HACHADOURIAN: Orchid seeds require
the presence of a specialized group of fungi.
That fungus essentially provides the orchid embryo
with the nutrients it needs to grow and develop
into a seedling.
LUKE GROSKIN: Kind of like a parasite,
an oh, so beautiful parasite.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: They're just a group
of plants that is not only highly evolved, but also highly
adaptive, might be a better way of looking at it.
LUKE GROSKIN: True, but that doesn't explain why
they cause such infatuation.
MARC HACHADOURIAN: There might be things
that we may not realize, and that the orchid is drawing us
in, sort of attracting us as well, with something
beyond our natural perceptions.
LUKE GROSKIN: There's no science to back that up,
but would it surprise you?
For Science Friday, I'm Luke Groskin.