Fossil Orchid shows Orchids are ancient.
 

Very cool article! :D
Thanks for sharing Tindo :):Tup:

Cool article! Thanks so much for sharingTindomul1of9. I understand that the bee was trapped some 15-20 million years ago. This is not much different of what I read some time ago (don't remember where I saved the article, but I have it!) about a possible orchid fossil found in Europe having 15 million years.

What I find most interesting is that orchids have survived many worldwide climate changes including the end of the Cretaceous period and the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. They are much more resilient and more evolved than previous believed over 80 million years!

See .. so it isn't that easy to kill them :biggrin:
(:hmm I wonder if that will generate orchid :_( stories?)

80 million years ago, I wonder what it looked like! Apparently the bee liked it. Thanks Tin that is awesome:clap:

Agree with you Phantasm. It is more than interesting. The secret is not to be endemic, but epidemic! Being everywhere is a good way of avoiding extinction!

Great article, Tin! :clap:
Thanks for sharing it with us :dance:

One article I read mentioned that the pollen was from a plant representative of "the extant subtribe Goodyerinae (subfamily Orchidoideae)". Evidently this subtribe has not shown a lot of evolutionary changes over millions of years, especially compared to most plants in Orchidacea.
The members of Goodyerianae are mentioned here:

Subtribe : GOODYERINAE | Orchids Online

Perhaps the pollen from 15-20 million years ago still lives on in today's plants, but it would be pretty difficult to nail it down. The bee itself is extinct.....