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| Stanhopea connata ABG# 1993-2450 |
Not every
Stanhopea smells like a pastry shop. Poor
Stanhopea connata. It's the one
Stanhopea that can clear a room.
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| Dorsal view of Stanhopea connata ABG# 1993-2450 |
While most stanhopeas have fragrances delectable enough to eat,
Stanhopea connata exudes cresole and indole. Cresole is the fragrance compound associated with coal tar (think freshly poured asphalt). And indole has a fragrance described in botanical literature as fecal. I was not, to be honest, in a hurry to have a closed door photo session with
Stanhopea connata.
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| Front view of Stanhopea connata |
And that's too bad! Look at that face, with the bold tiger stripes and spots. I was completely charmed. Charmed and overwhelmed, actually.
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| Dorsal view of the lip and column with sepals and lateral petals removed |
Of course, it doesn't matter one bit what I think of the fragrance. The fragrance is all about attracting a pollinator. And it's kind of cool to think that there are fragrance-collecting bee species in the tropics who are mad for asphalt and cow dung.
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| Dorsal view of the lip without the column |
My photo shoot with
S. connata lasted about an hour. Over time, the cresole seemed to diminish and the indole began to assert itself. But by the end I hardly noticed. What a handsome plant this is. The images will be stored in ABG's image library.
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| Ventral view of the lip |
Stanhopea connata grows as an epiphyte along the eastern cordillera in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. It is pollinated by
Eulaema speciosa.
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| Ventral view of the column |
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