People use orchids as a metaphor for fragility, but they’re only fragile when they’re grown outside of their natural habitat.

When they're where they belong, interconnected to a vast network of fungi that feeds them, pollinated by insects that coevolved in mutually beneficial relationships, in a dense forest of peer species that create the perfect environment for them to thrive, they’re really very tough.

Orchids aren't a metaphor for fragility, they're a metaphor for community.