A Special Relationship

Not up to my usual standards of quality but I needed to record this experience.

This orchid has a special relatioship with wasps.  It gets them hooked on a drug that keeps them coming back for more.  Payment is by trasporting pollen capsules to other flowers of the same kind.

You can see the pollen capsules (pollinia) stuck on its face in the right image.

Here's what Google's AI overview has to say about it:

Broad-leaved helleborine (Epipactis helleborine) orchids employ a unique pollination strategy involving wasps and a potentially intoxicating nectar. Wasps, particularly common wasps (Vespula vulgaris) and European wasps (Vespula germanica), are attracted to the flowers for nectar, which contains chemicals that can have an intoxicating effect on them, similar to alcohol. This intoxication can cause the wasps to spend more time at the flower, increasing the likelihood of pollination as the pollinia (pollen masses) attach to the wasp and are transferred to other flowers.