Flying ORCHID Stock Photography

Orchids comprise one of the most abundant and varied of flowering plant families. There are over 20,000 known species and orchids are especially common in moist tropical regions. Although temperate orchids usually grow in the soil, tropical orchids are more often epiphytes which grow non-parasitically on trees. The importance of plants to life on earth is immeasurable. We depend upon them for the air we breathe, for the food we eat, for shelter, and for medicine. Ninety percent of all plant and animal species on our planet exist in the tropics -- that warm moist belt that circles the earth. And it is in these regions where the extinction rate is the highest. Species are disappearing faster than anyone knows. They cannot be replaced