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Why is everything an orchid?
- 4ggr0 3y agoSounds like Orchids are the Crabs of the plant word.
- sand500 3y agoTo add context, animals across the world have evolved independently to resemble crabs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
- moron4hire 3y agoCrustaceans, not animals in general, and there are also examples of crab-like species that have evolved away from crab features. This is one of those popsci memes that is wrong and just won't die.
- pvaldes 3y ago> Everything evolved to a crab Cant' wait until this people eventually discover the Coleoptera
- marcosdumay 3y agoIt's exactly the other way around. While every animal seems to eventually become like a crab, orchids seem to eventually become like every plant and then some more.
- lisper 3y ago> every animal seems to eventually become like a crab Say what??? Reference needed. I can think of plenty of animals that are nothing like crabs.
- RajT88 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation It comes from a recent clickbaity headline, "Why does everything keep evolving into crabs?". Crab-like creatures have independently evolved a bunch of times from different crustaceans. Nobody is saying that fish keep evolving into crabs.
- moron4hire 3y agoNobody? GP said "While every animal seems to eventually become like a crab...". That's not nobody. I think you'll find a lot of people online who have gotten the "crustacean carcinisation" idea wrong and think it applies to all animals.
- RajT88 3y agoFine, fine - I will clarify so as not to get dinged by the pedants. Nobody in the scientific community is saying that fish keep evolving into crabs.
- PakG1 3y agoBut... what about humans???
- victorbjorklund 3y agoWhy you think rust is so populare?!
- RajT88 3y agoSee: Zoidberg
- Viliam1234 3y agookay then... Nobody in the scientific community except humans is saying that fish keep evolving into crabs.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cmrx64 3y agoIf crabs are the terminal object in the category of evolvable animals, orchids are an initial object in the category of evolvable plants?
- Clamchop 3y agoArticle doesn't appear to be presenting a similar thesis at all, nearly the opposite. It doesn't have much to say about non-orchid plants, certainly not that they evolve to be orchid-like. Orchids are famous for being unusual and unusually diverse, that's what the article lingers on.
- k__ 3y agoYes, sounds more like Brassica oleracea to me, lol.
- krick 3y agoNo, not really. Brassica oleracea is a single species manually cultivated by humans into variety of forms that are known by different names. Orchids are a huge family of plants. If anything, you should compare them to all Brassicaceae. A quick refresher: Brassicaceae family aside from that notorious Brassica oleracea also contains such things as mustard and horseradish, and even Brassica genus alone contains a whole lot of things that are completely unlike all these Brassica oleracea varieties. And Brassicaceae family is 5 times smaller than Orchidaceae, in terms of number of species. So this is a silly comparison. Talking about all "orchids" is talking about like 15% of all flowering plants. In fact, I would say that even the mere fact that somebody knows a common English word to name all "orchids" kinda suggests that the family is not that diverse… Except, an even larger family is Asteraceae, and they probably look even more like each other. (That said, I actually have no idea why all these broccoli, kale, etc are still considered a single species. Can you really easily cross-bred modern specimens of broccoli and kale?)
- eszed 3y ago> Can you really easily cross-bred modern specimens of broccoli and kale? I know that one particular pairing of broccoli and kale did cross-breed, in my father's garden, many years ago. At least, that's what he (a PhD biologist) told me. They shot up into flower stalks right away, and neither leaves nor florets were edible. Broccoli and cauliflower would interbreed, as well. Sometimes their piebald florets were edible, but usually they were terribly bitter. They were a curiousity, no more.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- theandrewbailey 3y agoI thought everything was Brassica oleracea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea \s: https://xkcd.com/2827/ https://xkcd.com/2827/
- nathancahill 3y agohttps://twitter.com/faineg/status/1386522223901618177/photo/3 https://twitter.com/faineg/status/1386522223901618177/photo/...
- hinkley 3y agoEverything is a: - broccoli - pea - rose - asparagus - crab
- _a_a_a_ 3y agoOh yeah? I recently discovered that the Teak tree is of the Mint family (Lamiales) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teak (take that, redwoods).
- lazydon 3y ago[flagged]
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoWould appreciate this kind of comment being labeled as by ChatGPT or whatever you used.
- codeflo 3y agoOr not posted at all. It baffles me that people genuinely seem to think that pressing a button on a tool (that we all have access to) is a unique and valuable contribution to the discussion.
- fferen 3y agoFails to mention the actual reason people are fascinated: their diversity of appearance. Typical AI summary with many words not saying very much.
- svachalek 3y agoSo does the article, because it's about speciation not humans. The summary doesn't describe this article at all.
- Quinner 3y agoThat's really not what the article is about, it focuses heavily on the evolutionary history and adaptation of the orchid and talks very little about its resonance with the human experience.
- bane 3y agoWait until the article comes out that most of the vegetables we eat are cabbages. - kale - cauliflower - broccoli - turnips - bok choy - horseradish - rapeseed - mustard and on and on and on it's wild
- TheRealPomax 3y agoIt's cultivated, so literally the opposite of wild ;)
- sophacles 3y agoMy favorite part of this fact, is that a surprising number of different brassica family vegetables are just one species: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea#Cultivars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea#Cultivars
- hinkley 3y agoI planted some turnips as a cover crop a couple years ago, and one morning we looked out to find an Asian lady with her kid out there just nonchalantly cutting leaves along the sidewalk. Which is how I learned that big chunks of the south and of Asia eat turnip greens. (also you forgot collard, and brussel sprouts, but I'll give you a pass on the latter)
- porkbeer 3y agoDo most pepople not? Greens are a staple in the southern usa.
- hinkley 3y agoI’ve never seen them for sale in the PNW. Other greens but not turnip. Chard all the time, collards, bok choi and friends. Mustard once in a while. Relatively sure I haven’t even seen turnip greens at Asian grocery stores here either. I imagine she felt like she hit the lottery. I wonder if her kid had ever had them before. She was pretty young.
- the-mitr 3y ago
- gcanyon 3y agoI know it’s a fine point, but I think it’s important: the title is “ON The Origin of Species…” Omitting the “On” gives it a different sense that I think contributes to the mistaken belief the book is about convincing us that evolution happens, rather than describing how it happens.
- calibas 3y agoI used to think of orchids as something exotic, then I realized there's over 20 species of orchids native to where I live in Northern California. Bog orchids, Lady's Slippers, Coralroots, Twayblades, Fairy Slippers, and the Phantom orchid, among others.
- ioseph 3y agoAbsolutely love orchids, they're pretty abundant where I live and even within the region the variety is huge! They make fantastic house plants, very low maintenance assuming your climate is appropriate, but please source them ethically.