Natural treasures from the tropics

It doesn't seem very long ago that to see a tropical orchid was a rare privilege; now, of course, the garden centres and supermarkets are awash with them. What truly interesting times we do live in.

This orchid flower, from our local Tesco, is sitting in another tropical marvel - the shell of an Argonaut, a little, muscular, pelagic octopus. They look good together, but the link goes deeper still, one being associated with maleness, the other with femaleness.

Orchids get their name from the Greek orchis, meaning 'testicle', because of the shape of the subterranean tubers of some species. The word 'orchis' was first used by Theophrastos (372 - 286 B.C.), in his book De historia plantarum (The natural history of plants).

In the case of the Argonauts only females grow a shell, which they use as a case to protect their eggs, which they lay inside the shell in long threads. The female lives in the entrance of her shell and guards her eggs, until the young hatch.

It's only a small shell, so best seen zoomified.