"Sometimes you get a peloric
mutation, which is actually a reversion to a more primitive flower."
Although peloric forms are often referred to as "more primitive" because the flower appears more radially symmetrical (as a Tulip or Tradescantia), I don't really buy it. Most likely a "primitive" orchid flower would still be zygomorphic, like an Amaryllis or Hemerocallis; or like Thelymetras which have a lip barely distinct from the other two petals. Most orchids considered "primitive" for various reasons (lack of pseudobulbs or leaf succulence, plicate leaves arranged radially around a stem, poorly consolidated pollen, lack of an anther cap, and so on) already show marked lip specialization even if they lack other features of "advanced" orchid flowers. I prefer to think of peloric flowers as monstrous forms (though not necessarily monstrosities) where a mutation has made the remaining two petals more (sometimes much more) lip like.
Due to a lack of fossil orchids we will never know what the ancestral flowers looked like, but I'd be willing to bet they looked more like a Thelymetra or Spiranthes than like a peloric Phal.
Happy Succot and Simchat Torah!
Dennis
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