In addition to the great variety of...

Here are more orchid-growing tips (continued from my last post)...

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In addition to the great variety of inducements and ingenuity of nature to insure pollination, the orchid plant, compensating for the extreme danger threatening its very tiny and powdery seed progeny, produces this seed in great profusion.

Darwin cited an instance of one pod with approximately 6,020 fertile seeds, the plant bearing four such capsules.

One plant of Orchis maculate produced thirty seed pods, each pod containing about 6,200 seeds, or a total of 186,300.

Fritz Miiller found 1,756,440 seeds in a single Maxillaria pod.

The world would be overrun by orchids were it not that the seed prospers under conditions that are equally favorable to its enemies, pests and fungi.

The orchid seed's chance for survival is further reduced by the fact that it is not in itself supplied with sufficient food but must depend on outside help-a friendly fungus called Rhizoctonia, supplanted in artificial cultivation by chemical nutrient.

Another important disadvantage of the orchid seed is that, as compared to other plants, it is singularly undifferentiated into roots, leaves, and endosperm.

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I'll post more orchid care tips soon!

- Sara