“…the bee orchid that possesses flowers imitating the female bee of an extinct species.”.

-Leon Barre ‘A copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy’

The bee-orchid has developed to grow flowers that “resemble the genitals of the female insect of their particular pollinator, attracting the male insect that will then transfer the pollen.”. It has evolved over time to be self-pollinating through its visual adaptations. It’s physical appearance works as an archive of evolutional survival mechanisms of its past- the ways in which it developed to survive complex and challenging environments. 

Embedded within contemporary queerness is the successional heritage of our pasts, ones of which we are indebted to leave un-abandoned and acknowledged. Within our existence lives on the memory of those who shaped the forms we live in today.

Where limp wrists take us back to a time when homosexual males were attributed the effeminacy of a woman, and botanical euphemisms such as ‘pansy’, ‘daisy’ and ‘buttercup’: when queers begun to reclaim once prejudiced slurs throughout the ‘pansy craze’ in the US in the 1920’s as the backdoors of the prohibition movement gave rise to the speakeasies of underground culture. ‘Butch’, ‘camp’ and ‘femme’ from Polari, a language once spoken by us to connect and protect ourselves from the ‘other’.

Within the beauty of contemporary queerness exists an endless abundance of heritage, an infinite string as long as humanity itself coils, twists and contorts; a genetic code that forms a complex ball of yarn resembling the reality of which we live in today. 

From a more biological and ecological inspection, the evolution of the bee orchid reveals to us natures willingness to supersede our normative expectations of pollination and reproduction; the spreading of seed. A flower in drag; nature fends our existence. 

“…an idea of what the female bee looked like to the male bee… as interpreted by a plant… the only memory of the bee is a painting by a dying flower.”.

-Donna Haraway, from ’Sympoiesis’ in ‘Staying with the  Trouble’

The bee-orchid reminds us that within nature resides endless layers of meaning and bountiful heritage.