Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds 1870s. The NGA describes the work: "Lichen covers dead branches; moss drips from trees; and, a blue-gray mist veils the distant jungle. An opulent pink orchid with light-green stems and pods dominates the left foreground." On the right, two green-and-pink Brazilian Amethysts hover about a nest while a red-tailed Sappho Comet perches nearby. Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds (1871) is an oil on mahogany panel picture by Martin Johnson Heade acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 1982. Inspired perhaps by the works of Charles Darwin and Frederic Edwin Church, Heade planned to produce
Cyclic flower Cyclic flower A cyclic flower is a flower type formed out of a series of whorls; sets of identical organs attached around the axis at the same point. Most flowers consist of a single whorl of sepals termed a calyx; a single whorl of petals termed a corolla; one or more whorls of stamens (together termed the androecium); and a single whorl of carpels termed the gynoecium. This is a cyclic arrangement. Some flowers contain flower parts with a spiral arrangement. Such flowers are not cyclic. However in the common case of spirally arranged sepals on an otherwise cyclic flower,