National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Monday, November 23, 2009

Photo: Orchid Has "Active" Sex With Itself -- A Flower First?


Email to a Friend	<< Back to Full Story

An illustration and accompanying photographs show how the agile Chinese orchid Holcoglossum amesianum fertilizes itself.

While many species of flowering plants can self-pollinate, the newfound flower is the first known plant in which pollination is entirely self-directed.

Photographs and illustration courtesy LaiQiang Huang, Tsinghua University Graduate School at Shenzhen/Nature