Female Orchids

This month’s post features a combination of common features that taken together make this orchid very unique and uncommon. The three features are bifurcation, ridgeforms and asymmetry. View the two examples, original and annotated below.

In the above example, the sheath divides into two streams with the main stream terminating at the hood. The left hand side of the sheath in the picture (right side of the orchid) splits into two ridgeforms from the originating ridgeform creating two distinct ridgeforms. Both of those ridgeforms fuse about halfway down the right labium to create a single ridgeform again, which then transitions into a hairpin ridgeform with the right labium.

The next examples are pictures of the same orchid showing additional ridgeforms on the right hand side of the picture (left side of the orchid). Additionally, the symmetry line down the center of the sheath and hood is annotated to illustrate why this orchid is asymmetrical. The two sides of the sheath are not mirror images which is the definition of asymmetry.

All of these features taken together make this orchid uncommon and therefore quite unique.

Do you have images of an uncommon orchid feature? Send them to me at Contact and I will post them on this blog if they qualify as uncommon.

The over arching theme of this orchid example is the demonstration of what constitutes the labium versus a ridgeform, and an uncommon example of a specific ridgeform.

From the larger perspective, this is a moonlight type orchid (princess complex due to being bifurcated and having many ridgeforms). This orchid is also asymmetrical (not a mirror image). View the two images below.

One of the many problems the Female Orchid Classification System (FOCS) solves is when is a labium a labium, or something else. If we were to rely solely on anatomical terminology, the example above would be confounding using just the words labium and hood. What FOCS identifies as 1 – Ridgeform above, in anatomical terminology is either clitoral tissue, or perhaps incorrectly part of the hood, or also incorrectly, all labium.

In FOCS and this example, the fusion point determines where 1 – Ridgeform and the right labium transition into all labium, below the fusion point. This can be determined in the example because the orchid view is from the lingual perspective. If the perspective was from the buccal side (not shown), the best that could be said is that the ridgeform transitions into labium at some undetermined point.

Which brings us to what makes this orchid uncommon: the 2 – Ridgeform shown in the example. Most commonly, ridgeforms occur outside the labia and may or may not fuse with the labium on the buccal side. For this orchid, 2 – Ridgeform originates and fuses (on the lingual side) with the right labium and is part of a continuous type of labia extent.

Do you have images of an uncommon orchid feature? Send them to me at Contact and I will post them on this blog if they qualify as uncommon.