Assessment of Orchid Surfaces Using Top-Down Contact Angle Mapping

Top-down contact angle (CA) measurements are used to characterize the green leaves and purple flowers of both old and young the Cattleya warneri orchids. The top-down CA allows the characterization of large surfaces away from the leaf edge, avoiding traditional cutting required for side view CA measurement. This allows large area mapping without damaging leaves making the method amenable to fieldwork and useful in environmental diagnostics. Young leaves are found to be hydrophobic whilst old leaves become practically hydrophilic across their entirety, mostly as a result of continued exposure to changes in the environment over time. The flowers are hydrophobic because of their visual and tactile attractor function for pollinating animals and the self-cleaning of dirt and pathogens. Real-time measurement and mapping of CA of surfaces open a new tool to assess the long-term impact of plant aging, pollution, and more of organisms in the field. The method has clear applications elsewhere such as in industrial probing of surfaces and products.