As it turned out, a no-show was no big deal for these ingenious self-fertilizing plants. Three days after the orchid’s flower opens, the stigma collapses, taking with it the finger-like appendage.

Q: I received a Phalaenopsis orchid as a present last fall, and it is still blooming. I have never tried growing an orchid ...

thereby fertilizing the plant. "The movement of the stigma appendage represents, to the best of our knowledge, a novel self-pollination mechanism in orchids," the Kobe University botanist SUETSUGU ...

While flowering for some species might be triggered by seasonal cues like day length, air plants reluctant to bloom might ...

By Unsie Zuege At the time, the orchid represented an entire day’s salary for Jerry Fischer – $25 – but he didn’t care. He’d never seen a flower so intriguing. As an ...