The schemes orchids use to attract a pollinator are elegant but low-percentage. Botanists recently studied one thousand wild orchids for fifteen years, and during that time only twenty-three plants were pollinated. The odds are bad, but orchids compensate. If they are ever fertilized, they will grow a seedpod that is supercharged. Most other species of flowers produce only twenty or so seeds at a time, while orchid pods may be filled with millions and millions of tiny dust-sized seeds. One pod has enough seeds to supply the world’s prom corsages for the rest of eternity.
