Apollo and Daphne

The male thynnid wasp and the drakaea orchid are engaged in a mimetic loop: the male wasp mistaking the orchid’s labellum and sultry aroma for an attractive female and attempting to lift her high into the air for lovemaking. The orchid resisting, smacking the wasp’s thorax with it’s column of sticky pollen, sending him off frustrated but undeterred. These species evolved together as a holobiont, an organism of organisms, with the male wasp as it’s selector. And he selected the females to have no wings, so that they might climb and wait. And he reduced the orchid to just enough stem and inflorescence to support a status quo faux female wasp body. But, when a female climbs a drakaea, who does he choose?

The drakaea orchid was named by botanist John Lindley, after the transcendent botanical artist Sarah Drake, who worked for him and lived in his house but was not his wife. Since this holobiont isn’t classified, let’s call it Apollo and Daphne.

The Casa Detif by Guillermo Acuña Arquitectos Asociados was given an open wooden exoskeleton whose organized vertical pattern is a response to the pattern of the surrounding tree trunks.

So far, nothing back from the trees.