Floral Weekends – Ballerina Orchid

Biology was my favorite subject back in school, knowing how things happened inside a living thing always fascinated me, coz humans are just like machines except everything is different and weirder than actual machines. Botany facinated me coz I got to learn about plants, its hard to tell which out of zoology or botany was my fav. Anyhoo, so I thought of starting a weekly segment – Floral Weekends on sundays, where I write about strange and beautiful plants and flowers from around the world.

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Todays flower is Ballerina Orchid. Scientifically known as Caladenia melanema. 

Caledenia is genus of 350 species of plants in the orchid family growing mostly in the Australian region. Ballerina orchid named so because of its uncanny resemblance with a ballerina figure. The red-black parts are actually the sepals on the flower with one dorsal sepal being erect. The white and red parts make up the petals arranged like the lateral sepals, which adds on to its structural resemblance with a ballerina. The lower sepal act like delicate scampering legs. The head area is the labellum which acts as grounds for pollination, on its sides are present white teeth like structures.

This flower looks like a tiny ballerina with a beautiful pink to white gown and in a graceful ballet pose. How beautiful can god’s creation be. These plants bloom August to mid september. This kind of an orchid is extremely rare. This plant grows only on Lake Altham in Malle biogeographic region. The grazing of rabbits and kangaroos in the regions where they grow pose great threat to these orchids.

In case you wanna buy some seeds, you can get them from here.

Well thats all for today, hope you enjoyed the first post of Floral Weekends, stay tuned for more. In case you have any flowers that you’d like to share, or want me to write about, feel free to share. 🙂