AboutOrchids

Boo! There are orchids for every occasion, even Halloween. Here are some spooky orchids to haunt you, if you’re not too scared to go further…

Ghost Orchids (first photo) —
The famous stars of The Orchid Thief earn a phantasmic name from their weird white blooms. Since these strange plants are leafless, the flowers seem to emerge from nowhere, and hover in the air like bizarre, ghostly apparitions.

Dracula Orchids (second photo) —
These orchids hang upside down like bats, wear monkey masks, and smell like musty fungus. In the photo below, the black flower of Dracula vampira leaves a biting impression.

Spider Orchids (third photo) —
Spider Orchids, or Brassias, don’t have eight legs, but their long petals help make them great arachnid mimics. They’re good enough to convince spider-hunting wasps to attack. It’s a freaky, sneaky way of tricking the wasps into pollinating them.

Bulbophyllums (fourth and fifth photos) —
Some Bulbophyllum flowers stink like rotting meat. Others foul the air with a scent which smells like something you scraped off the bottom of your shoe. They’re beautiful blooms with foul fragrances.

Laelia anceps (sixth photo) —
This native Mexican species traditionally decorates graves on the Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos. Would you like these haunting orchids on your tombstone?

Find more spooky orchids at Smithsonian Gardens. Happy Halloween!

Explore posts in the same categories: Fragrant Orchids, Misc, Photos

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2014 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Fragrant Orchids, Misc, Photos.

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