If you click back through my previous blog posts, you will probably notice that I love flowers. Orchids are the stars of the flower world. The family name is Orchidaceae and it presently has about 28,000 accepted species distributed in 763 genera. Here are some details about orchids from Wikipedia: Orchidaceae.
The family encompasses about 6–11% of all seed plants. The largest genera are Bulbophyllum (2,000 species), Epidendrum (1,500 species), Dendrobium (1,400 species), and Pleurothallis (1,000 species). It also includes Vanilla (the genus of the vanilla plant), the type genus Orchis, and many commonly cultivated plants such as Phalaenopsis and Cattleya. Moreover, since the introduction of tropical species into cultivation in the 19th century, horticulturists have produced more than 100,000 hybrids and cultivars.
We like to visit botanical gardens and arboretums and this beautiful flower was growing the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia, California. By way, orchid flowers are very difficult to photograph because digital sensors do not accurately capture their color depending on lighting conditions.
