''Catasetum saccatum'', the sack-shaped catasetum, is a species of

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Eart ...

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

remarked on the ability of the species to launch its viscid pollen sacs with explosive force, when an insect touches a

seta In biology, setae (; seta ; ) are any of a number of different bristle- or hair-like structures on living organisms. Animal setae Protostomes Depending partly on their form and function, protostome setae may be called macrotrichia, chaetae, ...

. He was ridiculed for reporting this by the naturalist

Thomas Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialized in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stor ...

Gallery

File:Catasetum saccatum 1.webp File:Catasetum saccatum 4.webp File:Catasetum saccatum 7.webp File:Catasetum saccatum 9.webp,

Pseudobulbs In botany, a pseudobulb is a storage organ found in many epiphytic and terrestrial sympodial orchids. It is derived from a thickening of the part of a stem between leaf nodes and may be composed of just one internode or several, termed ''heterob ...

File:Eulaema cingulata with Catasetum saccatum and Catasetum discolor pollen atttachment locations.png, ''

Eulaema cingulata ''Eulaema cingulata'' is a large-bodied black and orange Apinae, corbiculate bee in the genus ''Eulaema''. It is characterized by its size and flashy orange segments of its metastoma. Unlike other Eulaema, E. cingulata has white markings on its ...

'' orchid bee showing

pollinia A pollinium (: pollinia) is a coherent mass of pollen grains in a plant that are the product of only one anther, but are transferred, during pollination, as a single unit. This is regularly seen in plants such as orchids and many species of milkwee ...

attachment points of ''C. saccatum'' and '' C. discolor''. File:Catasetum saccatum - Sertum Orchidaceum pl. 41 (1838).jpg, 1838 illustration File:Catasetum saccatum (as C. christyanum) - Curtis' 131 pl. 8007 (1905).jpg, 1905 illustration File:Illustration of Catasetum Saccatum Wellcome L0051073.jpg, Illustration of the

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

File:Darwin - The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilized by insects (1877) - Fig 29.png, Illustration: (C) cross section of the column and (D-E) pollinia

References

External links

* * saccatum Plants described in 1840 {{Cymbidieae-stub