Nature Screen: Plants Behaving Badly – Orchids

Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species shook the scientific world and far beyond. Yet it was his next book, devoted entirely to orchids, which filled in gaps and clarified his revolutionary ideas. Orchids have an ethereal beauty, whether growing hundreds of feet up in a misty rainforest or along the edges of busy suburban roads. But their exotic flowers are shaped for just one purpose – to seduce pollinators by impersonating a female bee or wasp.