Many people orchids to the epitome of beauty. The colourful, delicate and fragrant blooms of an orchid will the centrepiece of any floral display. However, botanists have just on the world's ugliest orchid. The orchid family more than 25,000 individual species, so there every likelihood that one or two might not exquisiteness. A newly discovered variety has been the label of the world's ugliest orchid by botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens in the UK. It was last year in a forest in Madagascar. One saving grace for the newly-unearthed plant is its smell. The scientists say the flower a beautiful, musky, rose-like fragrance.
The 'ugly" orchid has been "gastrodia agnicellus". Researcher Johan Hermans : "It's not very attractive, I must say. It's fleshy looking, red inside and brown on the outside." However, scientists excited at finding the plant because they there could be many more in the undergrowth yet to be discovered. The bad news for the gastrodia is that even though it has just up, it is already to be an endangered species. Researcher Martin Cheek : "The bleak reality facing us cannot be underplayed. With two in five plants with extinction, it is a race against time to find, identify, name, and plants before they disappear."
