orchids

tags: NYC, Upper East Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature, image of the day Yellow orchid, Oncidium species. Photographed on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, NYC. Image: GrrlScientist, 18 May 2009 [larger view]. There are several hundred recognized Oncidium species, but the experts reclassify plants in this group often, so I am not sure which species this is. Additionally, Oncidium species have been freely hybridized in captivity.

This is the fourth of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial. Charles Darwin was a visionary in more ways than one. In 1862, Darwin was studying a Malagasy orchid called Angraecum sesquipedale, whose nectar stores lie inaccessibly at the bottom of a 30cm long spur (tube). Darwin predicted that the flower was pollinated by a moth with tongue long enough to raid the spur. Few people believed him, but in 1903, zoologists discovered Darwin's predicted moth, Xanthopan morgani praedicta, and it did indeed have a very long tongue. Darwin accurately predicted the…