Images #298-298 – An Orchid?

Can you believe this provocative and somewhat off-putting image is an orchid?  To me it looks like an escapee from a set of Aliens but is actually a Coryanthes orchid.  It is otherwise known as a Bucket Orchid and the second view may explain why.

Unlike a Venus Flytrap which lures insects to their deaths (thus feeding the plant) the Coryanthes uses insects to pollinate.  There are many kinds of Coryanthes orchids and my friend Bob, who has raised this orchid, has this one labeled Coryanthes macrantha.  Macrantha means “large flower” and that is certainly apt for this orchid which looks, to me, like a hanging slab of meat.

Is that part of the allure, the pretense of being a slab of meat?  I guess we’d need to ask the Stink Bugs and other flying insects that hovered around it. They, alas, are not talking. ❧