These 16 Flowers Look Like Something Else

These flowers, as a reproductive organ, evolved with one primary purpose in mind – to attract pollinators like insects or birds. This function has driven their astounding evolutionary explosion of distinct colors and shapes, some of which have even come to resemble various recognizable figures, plants or animals.

The green-winged orchid (O. morio) is widely distributed throughout Eurasia. The monkey orchid (O. simia), the man orchid (O. anthropophora), the soldier, or military, orchid (O. militaris), and the naked man orchid (O. italica) all have flowers that resemble helmeted human figures. (See also man orchid.) Other Eurasian species of Orchis include some known as marsh orchids and others known as spotted orchids.