‘World’s ugliest orchid’ featured in Kew’s list of 2020’s top 10 discoveries

Gastrodia agnicellus, nicknamed the ‘ugliest orchid in the world’, has featured in Kew’s list of the top 10 discoveries of the year. The orchid depends on fungi for nutrition and has no leaves or any other photosynthetic tissue.

“The 11 mm flowers of this orchid are small, brown and rather ugly,” Kew said in its list of the top 10 discoveries of the year.

According to The Guardian, Scientists said that the orchid remains underground in the deep shade of a humid forest most of the time, emerging only to flower, but it has “a noticeable musk rose-like scent

As many as 156 plant and fungal species were named by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and partners worldwide in 2020.