The crucial role a tiny wasp plays in creating a rare hybrid orchid will soon be explained through art at a botanical exhibition in Sydney.
Melbourne artist Dianne Emery used watercolours and pencils to depict the process of how Thynnine wasps, about the size of an ant, pollinate the Large Bird Orchid with the Dainty Bird Orchid to create the rare Bronze Bird Orchid.
Her piece will be on display in Botanica - The Art of Seduction: Plants and their Pollinators.
Emery says Bronze Bird Orchids are rarely found in the wild but can be created in artificial environments.
She says the Large Bird Orchid and the Dainty Bird Orchid emit a pheromone that is chemically similar to the two Thynnine wasps' pheromones.
"There is a bit of mix up between the orchid and the wasp and that's where you get the hybrid occurring," Emery says.
"I like that fact that they (the hybrid orchids) are so tiny, fragile and have this quite amazing method of pollination that seems so sophisticated for such a tiny little plant."
Emery is fascinated by the thought the wasp and the orchid would have evolved together over many years.
"It's quite gobsmacking when you think of the time it would have taken for them to develop this co-dependence and this existence," she says.
"If the wasp died out for some reason due to pesticides or climate change or habitat change, then the orchid would also die out - their co-dependence is so great."
Botanica curator Judy Dunstan says the move to include pollinators, like wasps and beetles, and natural science artists in the exhibition is timely.
"Worldwide there are tremendous problems occurring with declining populations in pollinators due to use of pesticides, loss of habitat and disease," she says.
"Some plant species are themselves under threat of extinction due to the decline in their particular pollinators."
* Botanica - The Art of Seduction: Plants and their Pollinators will be on show at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney from May 24 to June 15, 2014.
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