Researchers in Japan recently identified a new species of orchid that's growing unexpectedly in parks, gardens, and balconies around the country. The flower has "pink-and-white blooms so delicate and fragile they look like they were spun from glass," CNN reports.
The flower closely resembles and is a close relative to a common orchid species in Japan. Orchids in the Spiranthes genus, often called "ladies' tresses," have "a central stem, around which grow an ascending spiral of tiny, bell-shaped flowers that can be white, pink, purple, or yellow," CNN explains. Spiranthes is the most familiar orchid in Japan, according to the study's lead author Professor Kenji Suetsugu of Kobe University's Division of Biodiversity, Ecology, and Speciation. There are around 50 species of Spiranthes, but only one of them, Spiranthes australis (S. australis), was thought to grow on the mainland.
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