La orquidaria

Today was a packed day full of interest. I took the students to an orquidaria, or orchid house tucked away in a secret spot of the city and run by the University of Quenca. Over 450 species of Orchids on display (!) from the cool air of the Andean cloud forest to the humid forests sloping down to the true rainforest. There are between 30 -50 thousand species of orchids known to science and many more yet to be documented undoubtedly making them some of the most fascinatingly diverse representations of the plant world for more reasons than one. Among many interesting facts about orchids are that they hail from the family Orchidaceae, from the Greek for ?testicle? in reference to their bulbous stems. Did you know that? They also have some incredibly sophisticated evolutionary adaptations for pollination.

Orchids are seducers. Seducing their pollinators, either wittingly or not, to spread their pollen to others of their kind, sometimes at great distances. There are some orchids which attract their pollinators through smell and others that mimic the chemical cues and pheromones of their insects hosts making insects like euglossine bees mad with lust. Others attract their pollinators with color and scent only to trap them in their folded flowers long enough so they become well smeared in pollen. Still others will physically mimic the very appearance of insects with tiny hairs and incredibly adapted parts made to look exactly like a fly, a bee, a wasp. Teasing seducers of the plant world using insects for their own ends and seldom offering anything in return. And did I mention they are incredibly beautiful? Complex, delicate works of art?

The students were enamored, as was I and I snapped some gorgeous shots perusing through the damp loamy air of the greenhouse aisles. My favorite I think was a group of orchids called, cada de mono, or monkey face. Looking directly on one of these you are greeted by yes, what looks exactly like a monkeys face in miniature, a gibbon or baboon maybe, staring back at you from the curls of four delicate petals hanging penduoulsy from the plant above. I snapped this shot, not of the cado de monos, but of yet another face goofily grinning back amongst the petals?

In the afternoon we met Catherine at the museum with the students. Wandering among reconstructed Canari ruins and gardens on the grounds. Enjoying the late afternoon sun while watching a thunderstorm break in the far distance over the mountains leaving us unscathed in the warm lull of late afternoon. Later wandering the halls of Ecuador?s cultural and indigenous history from one tradition to the next, one people to another. And there are many, literally dozens of different ethnic groups here, all with their very own language. This is absolutely incredible considering Ecuador is roughly the size of Colorado. As I?ve noticed before there often seems to be parallel overlaps among regions of high biological diversity and cultural diversity. Many of the same forces of geography, climate, and isolation shape both these forces across time and space, just like those orchids so well adapted and specific to their niche so too our own cultural origins and traditions. My favorite part of the museum was devoted to the Shuar people of the Southern Amazon. A completely out of this world cosmology that included among other things headhunting and head shrinking, on display with yes, real shrunken heads!