Lots of Tiny Swans

Polycycnis muscifera

Naming a new plant isn't like naming a new person; the naming and classification are more like an ongoing process than a one-time event. When John Lindley, the 19th century English botanist, described the orchid above with its long arching column, he put it in the genus Cycnoches (the Swan Orchids, from the Greek kyknos [swan] and anches [neck]). However this plant is different from the Swan Orchids in almost every other way. It has lots of small hermaphroditic flowers and ovoid pseudobulbs. Cycnoches has unisexual dimorphic flowers that are large and waxy, and tall spindle shaped pseudobulbs with many internodes.

With more information in hand, H.G. Reichenbach in 1855 created a new genus for the plant and named it Polycycnis, from the Latin poly (many) and cycnis (swan). Many swans.

Polycycnis is more closely related to Stanhopea than it is to Cycnoches. Like Stanhopea, it is pollinated by fragrance-collecting male Euglossine bees. The bee lands on the lip of the flower and crawls toward the center where he scratches in order to obtain the liquid fragrance. When he alights, he smacks into the end of the long arching column and receives a packet of pollen on his thorax.

Polycycnis muscifera grows as an epiphyte below 2000 meters elevation in Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

Cycnoches warscewiczii, the Swan

Cycnoches warscewiczii ABG# 03-1121

Attention fans of Peristeria elata, the Dove Orchid. Allow me to introduce you to the Swan Orchid, which is flowering now in the Orchid Display House. Notice the graceful arching neck (the column), the white body (the lip) and chartreuse wings. Okay, it's an inverted swan, but never mind--it's lovely.

Cycnoches warscewiczii is just one of 30 or so species of Cycnoches, the Swan Orchids, which grow in the American tropics. Cycnoches produce flowers that are usually either male or female. In some species the male and female flowers look so strikingly different that they were initially thought to be different species.

The female flowers of Cycnoches warscewiczii

If you love orchid fragrances, you will want to experience this one. Like so many other Euglossine bee-pollinated orchids, this one smells delicious.

Acquiring pollen involves a sort of trapeze maneuver on the part of the bee. Even so, pollination isn't on his agenda at all. His goal is to simply to collect the liquid fragrance from the flower's lip, probably for pheromone production. As the bee grasps the margins of the lip with his two pairs of front legs, he releases his grasp with his two hind legs. His abdomen swings downward and touches the tip of the column, accidentally discharging the golden pollen masses onto his back.

The bee finishes collecting the fragrance and off he goes, cologned and resplendent, in search of yet more fragrance. Does he notice his cool new bling? Probably not. Eventually he arrives at a female flower, which he unwittingly pollinates while collecting fragrance.