Photograph by James Wood.
Photography contest, “Vegetable” category.
Calochilus robertsonii – peloric mutant of purple beard orchid flowering in the Peter Murrell Reserve, Tasmania. This species is apparently prone to developmental errors so that the labellum can be petaloid or (as in this case) all the petals develop the labellum (lip) characteristics.
Are the “eyes” (prominent at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wsos/1522280435/) not present in the peloric variant?
Beautiful picture… but those things look vaguely mean. I would expect one of them to spit at me or quiver manically like in that book ‘The Ruins’. But I digress. Cool picture!
I do not see the bearded man at all - to me, they look like birds (maybe hummingbirds) feeding on the flowers. Maybe birds or insects have the same kind of pareidolia, and the plant takes advantage of that?
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