HairBoutique Blog

Orchid

First Night Flowering Orchid Discovered

The BBC reports that a night-flowering orchid, the first of its kind known to science, has been described by a team of botanists.   Experts say the “remarkable” species is the only orchid known to consistently flower at night, but why it’s adopted this behavior remains a mystery.

The specimen was discovered by Dutch researcher and study co-author Ed de Vogel during a field trip on an expedition to New Britain, an island near papua New Guinea, in a region of lowland rainforest on the South-East Asian island.

The findings appear in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

“It was so unexpected because there are so many species of orchids and not one was known to be pollinated at night,” said co-author Andre Schuiteman, senior researcher and an orchid expert at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

“It was quite remarkable to find one, after so many years of orchid research, that is night-flowering,” he told BBC News.

The specimen has been identified as belonging to the Bulbophyllum genus, which – with about 2,000 species – is the largest group in the orchid family.  While there are a number of orchids that do attract night-time pollinators, B. nocturnum is the first known species that exclusively flowers at night.

Ben & Jerry's

Ben & Jerry’s – Brilliant PR Or Corporate Death Wish?

Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc., the Vermont-based manufacturer of ice cream, frozen yogurt and sorbet, was founded in 1978 in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont, by childhood friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. Ben and Jerry’s products are distributed nationwide and in selected foreign countries.

Ben & Jerry’s was recently in the news for the troubles they had over their latest controversial ice cream flavor, Schweddy Balls.

Now they are in the thick of the Wall Street controversy.  Is all of this political activism helping or hurting their corporation?  And is there brilliance or madness behind their latest actions?

This weekend, the board of directors of Ben & Jerry’s published a statement of solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, saying “The issues raised [by the protesters] are of fundamental importance to all of us,” and that they “support this call to action and are honored to join you in this call to take back our nation and democracy.” Continue reading “Ben & Jerry’s – Brilliant PR Or Corporate Death Wish?” »