Happy 200th birthday, Charles Darwin!          Happy 200th birthday, Charles Darwin! British naturalist, voyager on the HMS Beagle, and author of many books including the Origin of Species, Darwin was ahead of his time with scientific theories, penning thoughts that reached to the far distant past as well as keen observations of the world around him.
Take the example of this amazing white orchid which can be found in Madasgar. It is called Angraecum sesquipedale, or the Comet Orchid. In Latin, sesquipedale means one and a half feet, the amazing length of the nectar spur that was the subject of one of Darwin’s theories. In his study of orchid cross-fertilization during the mid-1800s, Darwin noted that a moth that could pollinate it would need to have a proboscis, or nose-lie structure, that would equal the length of the nectar spur. In 1862, he wrote “ … in Madasgascar there must be moths with probosces capable of extension to a length of between ten and eleven inches!” The problem was that no one had ever seen such an insect anywhere before, and Darwin was mocked for his unusual idea.  It would have been unlikely anyone at that time would have seen a moth’s proboscis unfurl for a second in the dark of night anyway; even today with infrared cameras, it’s hard to catch.  Darwin died in 1882, but years later, in 1903, a Sphinx Moth, a type of hawk moth, was found on Madasgar. Called Xanthopan morgani subsp. praedicta, the praedicta recognized Darwin’s prediction that it indeed existed. Â
INto orchids? Check out the new review of Moth Orchids by Master Gardener Rachel Oskins.
