A fine pair of pollinia

A pollinium is the specific, pollen-bearing structure of Asclepiadaceae and Orchidaceae which is extracted by pollinators from a flower and transported for pollination to another flower. It's a mass of pollen grains fused by means of their wavy texture or fine threads and originates from a single anther. This mass sticks together and during pollination is transported as a single unit.It's the dangly yellow bits hanging from the upper part of this bee orchid.

The bee orchid Ophrys apifera is an attractive species with several small flowers, each of which has a lip resembling a bee, and three large, pink, petal-like outer sepals; the two other inner sepals look like antennae. The whole flower thus mimics an insect feeding on a flower. In biology, the term ‘mimicry’ refers to cases where natural selection has favoured a resemblance between individuals of different species, and there are numerous examples of orchid flowers which resemble their insect pollinators.

In other Ophrys species in the Mediterranean region, for example, male bees or wasps try to copulate with the lip of the flowers, which look and smell like the females of their own species. However, in Britain and generally elsewhere, the bee orchid is self-pollinated and the pollinia, which hang on a thread, are blown against the receptive surface of the stigma.

This bee orchid was photographed at King's Dyke Nature Reserve where Pete was leading the annual Bug Hunt. After a wet start the weather was fair, and there was a good group of people with plenty of keen and interested children. I helped for a while, then went off to do some botanical recording, managing to find a few new interesting species for the reserve.

On the way back we stopped at the Nene Washes so that Pete could do some suction sampling along a roadside drain. The cattle were absolutely fascinated, completely absorbed by his antics. I found some insects to photograph, and was thrilled to hear a pair of snipe drumming - the first I've heard for years.