Help: strange orchid

travelbug · #1 06-09-2009, 06:28 PM

need help id a strange orchid

thanks a bunch!

DREW HARTIS · #2 06-09-2009, 11:05 PM

I would have to say that the flower you have is not an orchid at all but a member of the lily family. I can't say what it is exactly but orchid flowers always have 3 sepels and 3 petels unless some are fused as in paphiopedilum, and the pollen is always incapsulated not loose as an the flower you show. It is a nice flower though and worth growing. Maybe someone else will know more then I.

virgil · #3 06-10-2009, 10:50 AM

Looks like what grows wild here in south Louisiana wet areas in the fields and road side ditchs, we call it the spider lily,

fotofashion · #4 06-10-2009, 01:33 PM

It is a member of the Amaryllis family. If you were to dig it up there would be a bulb attached.

Beverly A.

LWilco · #5 06-13-2009, 02:11 AM

Yep spider lilly of some kind. Keep in mind the flower structure of an orchid. Many plants can be quite similar to orchids if you dont know a few ways to distinguish them. Flower structure is probably the easiest to identify.

Orchids have:
-3 petals (one of which is modified into the complex "lip")
-3 sepals (the slipper orchids have only two) (often display very similar color and body as the petals.)
-A column which replaces the sexual organs pistil and stamen in other flowers.(contains pollen which is specially packaged into little bundles called pollinia and it also contains a stigmatic surface to accept pollen.)

With this knowledge you can easily exclude your flower from the orchids because it has six identical petals (probably some withered sepals on the underside) and large stamen.