Question: Does that mean that orchids evolve faster than the creatures that pollinate them, to keep ahead of competitors? And if so, is this in any way unusual in the plant kingdom?
It's hard to measure the rate of evolution, but one thing that orchids do well, make a lot of seed from a single successful pollination, lets them try out a lot of variations to see if one will have an advantage. As I'm sure most readers of this list know, the lack of food supply in the seed allows orchids to make tiny seeds and that allows thousands or even millions of seed to fit into a single seed capsule. Since these seed all arise from the union of distinct pairs of gametes, each seed is sightly different from any of the others and has a slightly different potential if it lands in a suitable place after the capsule ruptures. Maybe this huge number of variants gives them a bit of a head start on their rivals.
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Steve Beckendorf
Berkeley, California
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