Sunday, August 06, 2006

Summer Blooming Orchids


The summer blooming orchids are popping up on the balcony and it is really relaxing to stare at their amazing colors and enjoy their fragrances. The pictured orchid is a sweet smelling Encyclia alata that was being visited by ants, likely for the sugary secretions that it exudes on the stem. Perhaps ants are the pollinator. There were also three more Stanhopeas with those wonderful bird-like flowers that remind me of space ships from a science fiction movie and that produce some of the strongest frangrances in the orchid family.

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