Grass Pink, a Picasso-like Creation

A wild rose torn to bits, then glued back together by someone who had never seen a flower before, might look something like a Grass Pink. What would be the rose's center, bristling with yellow-tipped stamens, has been moved to the tip of one petal, giving the flower a Cubist appearance.

The petal with bristles is the lip, and is at the top of the flower, instead of the bottom as in most orchids. But it's actually the other orchids that are upside-down. All orchid flowers start development with the lip at the top, but most of them twist 180 degrees as they develop. The Grass Pink is non-resupinate: it never does that half-twist, and the lip stays on top.

The bristles on the lip aren't really stamens, but they look enough like stamens to trick bees into landing on them. The lip, which is hinged at the base, swings down under the weight, bringing the bee's back into contact with the column. As the bee extricates itself, it is in just the right position to get pollen stuck to its back, or deposit pollen it has acquired in previous encounters with Grass Pinks.

C. pulchellus prefers wet ground found in the meadows and bogs of western Pennsylvania.

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