Orchid

Orchids pursue two opposite evolutionary extremes. Some produce millions of dust-sized seeds with almost no reserves, lacking even the endosperm that most seeds use for energy. These seeds can only germinate when landing near specific mycorrhizal fungi that provide the nutrients the seed cannot store. It's an extreme bet: produce astronomical numbers and hope a handful land in exactly the right microscopic spot. The strategy works through probability, not individual seed quality.

Other orchids specialize so absolutely with their pollinators that they achieve mutual dependence bordering on absurdity. The Malagasy star orchid has a 30cm nectar spur - a foot-long tube excluding all short-tongued visitors who would steal nectar without pollinating. When Darwin observed this flower in 1862, he predicted a moth with a 30cm tongue must exist, though no such moth was known. Forty years later, Xanthopan morganii praedicta was discovered - a moth co-evolved so specifically that orchid and moth cannot reproduce without each other.

Some orchids abandon mutualism entirely for deception. They mimic female wasps so precisely that males attempt copulation with the flower, pollinating it while receiving no nectar reward. Pure exploitation. The business insight: extreme strategies work - mass production with minimal investment per unit, or absolute specialization creating irreplaceable value. The middle doesn't work in orchid evolution.