#1259: Bee Orchid explain

[Beret Guy and Megan are walking through a wood.]

Megan: There are these orchids whose flowers look like female bees. When males try to mate with them, they transfer pollen.

[Megan kneels next to a flower.]

Megan: This orchid - Ophrys Apifera - makes flowers, but no bees land on them because the bee it mimics went extinct long ago.

[Megan stands.]

Megan: Without its partner, the orchid has resorted to self-pollinating, a last-ditch genetic strategy that only delays the inevitable. Nothing of the bee remains, but we know it existed from the shape of this flower.

[They walk on past the flower.]

Megan: It’s an idea of what the female bee looked like to the male bee…

Megan: …as interpreted by a plant.

Beret Guy: Wow, so…

[We see a full-color painting of an orchid flower. It has purple-pink petals on a mottled grey background, along with the bee-like parts. It’s quite a realistic painting.]

…the only memory of the bee is a painting by a dying flower.

[The flower is alone in a panel.]

[Beret Guy walks back on screen.]

[Beret Guy kneels down next to it.]

Beret Guy: I’ll remember your bee, orchid. I’ll remember you.

[Beret Guy walks off-panel again.]