Ahhh... the photo is mushy and blown out, but I am here to tell you they WERE beautiful. Every person that passed them gently bent in to find a fragrance in the blooms, the absence of which did not seem to diminish the experience at all. One and all left with a touch of lips lightly brushed on the ephemeral and scentless beauty and the secret smiles they walked away with indicated that was quiet enough to feel alive and lovely.
My mother grew orchids; dozens of different ones. One of the things she discovered; which I find is still largely unknown even by botanists, is that many (not all) orchids produce their fragrance for only an hour or so every day. You have to live with them to find this out. And they're all on different clocks of course. So; this phaleanopsis smells lovely from 10 AM to 11 AM- every day; and that catalleya (no I can't spell them!) is only faintly fragrant ever, and only from 3:30 PM to 4 PM. Hard to keep track of; but it makes the fragrances all the more precious when you experience them.
ReplyDeleteThat explains why I think of orchids as cunning! Hahaha... THANK YOU for the info and know that you have intensified my ability to be charmed by them evermore.
ReplyDeletecunning would be a good word. They ARE fascinating. Darwin documented one in England- where the labellum mimics a bee- so that male bees try to mate with it; and that cross pollinates the flowers. The actual biological details turn out to be even more stunning than Darwin realized; the flower produces the scent of the bee; looks more like the bee in the UV range than the visible, has the same hairs on it the bee does- and it goes on.
DeleteThat is stunning.
ReplyDelete