Fossil Orchid shows Orchids are ancient.

[Tindomul]

The name of the orchid in question is Meliorchis caribea meaning, the carribbean orchid pollinated by meliponine bees. The specimen was found in the year 2000 in the Dominican Republic. This is indeed a member of the subtribe Goodyerinae. Because of the possition of the pollinarium found on the amber encased bee, the structure of the flower can be deduced. It is believed that the bee would had had to enter the flower completely and the flower would have been gullet shaped.
Because of this, it is highly likely that the bee had a special relationship with this particular type of orchid, which tells us that orchid have adapting to specialized pollinators as far back as the Miocene 20 million years ago. Because of this known age, from age of the amber, and becuase there are many extant (living) members of the Goodyerinae subtribe, the scientists who conducted this study were able to estimate the age of the last common ancestor of all extant orchids. They, with computer programs, came to the conclusion that orchids lived as far back as 80 million years ago, during the time of the Dinosaur's! They think that orchids really diversified after the comet that killed the Dinosaur's hit the earth.

I received all info on this from the original published article,

Ramirez S.R., Gravendeel B., Singer R.B., Marshall C.R., & Pierce N.E. 2007.
Dating the origin of the Orchidaceae from a fossil orchid with its pollinator.
Nature. 448 1042-1045
Access to articles : Nature

[Tindomul]

So the next time you look at your orchid, remember that they have been around since the time of the Dinos!!

[tbaenziger]

If I read correctly, the bee was found with a pollinia, not with an orchid. Now if we could only get it to breed (the pollinia)!

[Tindomul]

This is true. When I made the original post I had not read the paper yet. Afterwards, I forgot to mention the orchid was not found, only its pollen.
Thanks for the correction.
Perhaps we can get a Triassic Garden out of this? lol

[David Morris]

As usual the article begs more questions that it answers. Perhaps the person who reads the Nature article can answer the questions that I naturally have. How was the Bee dated? Was the Pollen ID'ed as Orchid pollen by morphology alone or was a more genetic based test used? Orchids are not the only family of plants with columns or Pollinia. Anyway fascinating stuff. I had read the Article on Orchid Fossils in Ardittis books on Orchid Biology. The synapsis was that none of the known fossils could be positively Ided as Orchids since they were Steril (Missing flowers). The problem is that it is a rare event that a fossil gets made to begin with.

[Tindomul]

Hi,
The following is a direct quote from the article. Apparently it is all the morphological features of the pollinium and pollen combined to narrow this specimen down to a specific orchid species.

Horizon and locality. Specimen was excavated in the year 2000 from
a mine located east of Santiago, Cordillera Septentrional, Dominican
Republic. Lignite and sandy clay beds, Early to Middle Miocene (15–20 Myr old; ref. 3).

Diagnosis. The species is separated from other members of
Goodyerinae by the bent anther, large angular massulae (,100 per
pollinarium), and tightly packed pollen units (20320 mm). The
amber piece (2031435mm) contains a single inclusion of
Meliorchis caribea. Two complete pollinia (each ,1,0003500 mm),
belonging to a single pollinarium, are firmly attached to the mesoscutellum
of a worker bee, Proplebeia dominicana7 (Fig. 1a). The
tapering pollinia consist of .100 loosely packed angular massulae
(,2003100 mm, Fig. 1b), each of which encapsulates several tetrads;
obovoid pollen units are tightly packed.
These pollinarium features are found only in the Orchidoideae8. A
survey of herbarium specimens of all Neotropical genera within this pollinarium of Meliorchis is attached to the mesoscutellum (dorsal
surface of the thorax) of worker bees of P. dominicana. This indicates
that the flower of M. caribea was gullet-shaped, and, rather than the
bee probing the lip of the flower with its tongue as in modern
Goodyerinae (Fig. 2a), the anterior part of the bee would have had
to enter the flower completely (Fig. 2b).