Note the feather I found caught in a spider web. See it was once a bird but now it is a flower...or maybe it is still a bird when no one is watching...
In the front garden is a clump of Strelitzia reginae whose flower spikes appear very so often.
Their colouring is vivid.
Their orange and purple blue plumage are striking as they stand on perpetual watch over the bird bath and native frangipani.
They are the garden's guards and their appearance is magically arranged by some unknown florist whose hand arranges them thus...
And the sight of them begs the question, how could a plant know to copy mimic a bird??
Sure a bird or animal can mimic a plant, some camouflage themselves and take on the colours of their host and some look like their host and here we have plants that are copying the form of birds... ??
One wonders if the gardener that created such things slipped up...
What he or she meant to create was a bird with such a look.
And then I am thinking, I remember now a recent walk I had with my daughter when I introduced her to the snap dragon.
"See" I said, "you can see its jaws..." And now I am thinking, what of orchids that resemble butterflies... like that indigenous orchid the spider orchid or custard orchid or donkey...
None of them resemble their namesakes because none of them are their pollinators. All seem to me to resemble butterflies...
Is this a case of selective breeding or something more...
If it is selective breeding, imagine the odds and time frame that has led to such things...
For the orchid flowers in spring when all matter of creatures are flying and then their flower disappears...
The mystery of what they are disappears till the following year when one thinks they can see a butterfly, but find themselves looking at an orchid.
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