Then there are the epidendrums, tall terrestrial orchids bearing clusters of orange or red blooms at the end of wiry stems. Squint and the blooms and the foliage remind you of a perennial closer to home: the milkweed. The milkweed is the host plant of the monarch butterfly — the adult sups the nectar, the caterpillar eats the leaf. But in the orchid version, “the flowers have no nectar,” Mirenda says. “It’s a type of deception.” As he says this, I’m thinking of a butterfly named the viceroy, which mimics the monarch. Such beauty, such subterfuge.
- Adrian Higgins
Finding an oasis or two in the Natural History Museum
Mirenda points out a picture of an iridescent green euglossine bee with pollen on its back. The poor dear is visiting orchids to gather neither pollen nor nectar but perfume. “The males that have collected the most complex array of fragrances get the females,” he says. And we thought the orchids were scenting the air for us.
This engaging and mysterious interplay between flower and insect is played out on the floor above the show, where the museum’s butterfly pavilion provides a standing exhibit of live butterflies and moths supping at more common flowers.
If the winter chill is in your bones, it’s a good place to be. Warm and misty, the pavilion is about the size of a Metro car but alive with the prettiest of insects. The curators stock it with more than 40 species that are hatching at any one time, and currently include a large white- and black-veined beauty from Malaysia named the Paper Kite, as well as the iridescent and eye-marked stunner named the owl butterfly from Latin America. These creatures live no longer here than they would in the wild, two to three weeks, and it is sad to see some of the tattered ones on their way out. But they have food, warmth, light and freedom from predators, and even the old ones seem to be having fun, supping on a split melon or pineapple, and delighting young children they often mistake for flowers.