Ophrys apifera

[smartie2000]

In a lab in my botany class, the teaching assitant mentioned an orchid that resembled the bee and this orchid gets pollenated by the copulation of the male bee with the flower. I'm sure she was talking about an orchid like Ophrys apifera. They look exactly like a bee and they are very pretty, but I haven't grown it yet.

[wogga]

I seem to remember something about the Ophrys genus being terrestrial, and indigenous to england. Im pretty sure the whole genus is bee mimicing, actually. my favorite is O. speculum. i love the fringing of the labellum.

Theres a lot of info on the genus on wikipedia -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophrys

Check out the pollination...


*edit
I think the requisite symbiotic fungal relationship in most species is hard to reproduce in cultivation.