Orchids are characterised through their ways of animal pollination and wind dispersal and their adaptions to these to give them their common features. The pollen grains are massed into discrete parcels called pollinia to help with efficient pollination as the parcels are easily carried around by insects. The orchid flowers have evolved to entice the insect into doing this. The flower is made up of three sepals which are similar to each other and arranged radially, and three petals, one of which is modified to act as a landing pad for insect pollinators. The female and male parts in the centre of the flower are fused into a column with a single anther at the end.
Some species have a lip designed to mimic a female insect and attracts males to try to mate with it.
The colours, shapes and scents used to attract insects are numerous. Ranked among the world's most attractive species is the Cooktown Orchid. It has large pink coloured flowers - a common sight in the Cape York Peninsula monsoon scrubs. Orchids are abundant from Townsville to Cooktown in areas of rainforest, open forest, mangroves, mountain tops and even eucalypt-dominated forests. This diversity in habitats has resulted in the rich diversity in orchids.