Orchid Flower Quotes

I hated roses. I hated them for being so trite, so clichéd, a default, all-purpose flower that said I love you, I'm sorry, and get well soon. Give me peonies and tulips, orchids or gardenia. Those were flowers with character.

Flower petals in the breeze look like a butterfly flapping its wings. My love for you takes flight like a white orchid blushing pink.

All the men send you orchids because they're expensive and they know that you know they are. But I always kind of think they're cheap, don't you, just because they're expensive. Like telling someone how much you paid for something to show off.

You should see the way she smiles when I rattle off the names of the orchids in the greenhouse: oncidium, dendrobium, bulbophyllum, and epidendrum, tickling her face with each blossom. I wouldn't be surprised if 'Orchidaceae' was her first word.

Miriam - I'll give you any flowers you want!' Rhapsodising over the thousand scents of her body, I exclaimed: 'I'll grow orchids from your hands, roses from your breasts. You can have magnolias in your hair...!' 'And in my heart?' 'In your womb I'll set a fly-trap!

Life and other people's stories had always told her she was blue. Her father's eyes. The sea. Alice Blue. The color of orchids. Of her boots. Of fairytale queens. Of loss. But Alice's centre was red. It always was. The color of fire. Of earth. Of heart, and courage.

Then think of this as an adventure." I kissed hi cheek. "So which flower should I be?" He curled me close to his chest, nuzzling his face into my hair. "Mmmm, can't you be all of them? My own bouquet of beauty? Like daisies opening their friendly petals." He brushed his fingertips over my eyelids. "Or marigolds that burn like the summer sun." He rubbed his hands over my back. "Or orchids-rare and exotic." He traced a finger across my collarbone down to rest lightly on the locket I wore all the time. "Roses for passion." He kissed me.

It is a much wiser policy to plant acre after acre of orchids and lead one's life in solitude encompassed by their sheltering stems, than to surround oneself with the hoi polloi and so court the same pointless misanthropic disgust as befell Timon of Athens. Society is forever holding forth about fairness and justice. If it really believes these to be of such importance, it might do well to kill off a few dozen petty criminals per day, and use their carcasses to fertilize and give life to countless fields of flowers.

And the eye became a body, the murky heart of a rose. The sinister shadow of an orchid. Or the indolent poppy balanced behind the ear of Baudelaire.

As we delight in the strange and exotic beauty of orchid flowers, it is salutary to reflect that we are, in essence, looking at their genitalia.

What type of flavor do you think I prefer?" She cocked her head. "The subtle, the delicately made. You're the type of person who wants the mystery inside the flower bud." I can still appreciate the different nuances of the stronger flavors." He studied the orchid in the center of the table. "With the very delicate, you sculpt something down to such a whisper of form, there's nothing else it can be. It's in strength you find surprises, variation.

Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible - the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another like an octopus with long thing brown tentacles bare of leaves hanging from a twisted root. Twice a year the octopus orchid flowered - then not an inch of tentacle showed. It was a bell-shaped mass of white, mauve, deep purples, wonderful to see. The sent was very sweet and strong. I never went near it.

Black fire orchid Meaning: Desire to possess Pyrorchis nig'ricans|Western Australia Needs fire to flower. Sprouts from bulbs that may have lain dormant. Deep crimson streaks on pale flesh. Turns black after flowering, as if charred.

ON THE DEATH OF THE BELOVED Though we need to weep your loss, You dwell in that safe place in our hearts Where no storm or night or pain can reach you. Your love was like the dawn Brightening over our lives, Awakening beneath the dark A further adventure of color. The sound of your voice Found for us A new music That brightened everything. Whatever you enfolded in your gaze Quickened in the joy of its being; You placed smiles like flowers On the altar of the heart. Your mind always sparkled With wonder at things. Though your days here were brief, Your spirit was alive, awake, complete. We look toward each other no longer From the old distance of our names; Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath, As close to us as we are to ourselves. Though we cannot see you with outward eyes, We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face, Smiling back at us from within everything To which we bring our best refinement. Let us not look for you only in memory, Where we would grow lonely without you. You would want us to find you in presence, Beside us when beauty brightens, When kindness glows And music echoes eternal tones. When orchids brighten the earth, Darkest winter has turned to spring; May this dark grief flower with hope In every heart that loves you. May you continue to inspire us: To enter each day with a generous heart. To serve the call of courage and love Until we see your beautiful face again In that land where there is no more separation, Where all tears will be wiped from our mind, And where we will never lose you again.

I saw them. It was impossible to snitch a sample." He grunted, lowering himself into his chair. "I didn't ask you to." "Who said you did, but you expected me to. There are three of them in a glass case and the guard has his feet glued." "What color are they?" "They're not black." "Black flowers are never black. What color are they?" "Well." I considered. "Say you take a piece of coal. Not anthracite. Cannel coal." "That's black." "Wait a minute. Spread on it a thin coating of open kettle molasses. That's it." "Pfui. You haven't the faintest notion what it would look like. Neither have I." "I'll go buy a piece of coal and we'll try it.

We humans think we are smart, but an orchid, for example, knows how to produce noble, symmetrical flowers, and a snail knows how to make a beautiful, well-proportioned shell. Compared with their knowledge, ours is not worth much at all. We should bow deeply before the orchid and the snail and join our palms reverently before the monarch butterfly and the magnolia tree. The feeling of respect for all species will help us recognize the noblest nature in ourselves. Thich Nhat Hanh

But what the world remembered was her beauty. She was not just beautiful like some people think of beautiful, for her beauty was not just for herself. It was the kind of beauty that didn't kill or isolate. She made everything and everyone that saw her or that she saw, touched or walked over want to live a little longer just from the hope of seeing her again. The world flowered and grew wherever she passed. When she brushed by them, wild orchids and lilies mutated into forms and colors never seen before. Even rocks would sparkle, split and crumble into smaller chunks, then grow their ecstatic fragments back into cliffs, defying time and geology, and all because they felt her sueded feet step upon them.

Endless love and voluptuous appetite pervaded this stifling nave in which settled the ardent sap of the tropics. Renée was wrapped in the powerful bridals of the earth that gave birth to these dark growths, these colossal stamina; and the acrid birth-throes of this hotbed, of this forest growth, of this mass of vegetation aglow with the entrails that nourished it, surrounded her with disturbing odours. At her feet was the steaming tank, its tepid water thickened by the sap from the floating roots, enveloping her shoulders with a mantle of heavy vapours, forming a mist that warmed her skin like the touch of a hand moist with desire. Overhead she could smell the palm trees, whose tall leaves shook down their aroma. And more than the stifling heat, more than the brilliant light, more than the great dazzling flowers, like faces laughing or grimacing between the leaves, it was the odours that overwhelmed her. An indescribable perfume, potent, exciting, composed of a thousand different perfumes, hung about her; human exudation, the breath of women, the scent of hair; and breezes sweet and swooningly faint were blended with breezes coarse and pestilential, laden with poison. But amid this strange music of odours, the dominant melody that constantly returned, stifling the sweetness of the vanilla and the orchids' pungency, was the penetrating, sensual smell of flesh, the smell of lovemaking escaping in the early morning from the bedroom of newlyweds.

She reminded me of something, and suddenly I knew. I was a tiny child again at Radford, my uncle’s home, and he was walking me through the glass-houses in the gardens. There was one flower, an orchid, that grew alone; it was the colour of pale ivory, with one little vein of crimson running through the petals. The scent filled the house, honeyed, and sickly sweet. It was the loveliest flower I had ever seen. I stretched out my hand to stroke the soft velvet sheen, and swiftly my uncle pulled me by the shoulder. ‘Don’t touch it, child. The stem is poisonous.

The smell of flowers was overwhelming. They were all imported, some presumably from vast distances. Arkady saw orchids, chrysanthemums, hydrangeas, roses, and tuberoses, splashes of color against winter’s gray.

Lily's taste of beneficence had wakened in her a momentary appetite for well-doing. Her visit to the Girls' Club had first brought her in contact with the dramatic contrasts of life. She had always accepted with philosophic calm the fact that such existences as hers were pedestalled on foundations of obscure humanity. The dreary limbo of dinginess lay all around and beneath that little illuminated circle in which life reached its finest efflorescence, as the mud and sleet of a winter night enclose a hot-house filled with tropical flowers. All this was in the natural order of things, and the orchid basking in its artificially created atmosphere could round the delicate curves of its petals undisturbed by the ice on the panes.

I follow her into a storeroom at the back of the shop and catch my breath when I see the bouquets she has made for the shoot. I've seen a lot of wedding flowers, but nothing like these. There are soft apricot roses with dusty-blue delphiniums, creamy-white peonies with miniature pink alliums. Waxy green orchids with deep purple irises. A phone rings in the shop and she excuses herself and goes back outside to answer it. I bend down and pick up a pretty tumble of glossy green ivy and pale purple bells on slender stems. The flowers have a delicate scent, something elusive between hyacinth and freesia.

May 27, 1941 Sunday we encountered specimens of the rarely appearing yellow lady's slipper. This orchis is fragilely beautiful. One tends to think of it almost as a phenomenon, without any roots or place in the natural world. And yet it, too, has had its tough old ancestors which have eluded fires and drought and freezes to pass on in this lovely form the boon of existence. If a plant so delicately lovely can at the same time be so toughly persistent and resistant to all natural enemies, can we doubt that hopes for a better an more rational world may not also withstand all assaults, be bequeathed from generation to generation, and come ultimately to flower? President Roosevelt says he has not lost faith in democracy; nor have I lost faith in the transcendent potentialities of LIFE itself. One has but to look about him to become almost wildly imbued with something of the massive, surging vitality of the earth.

flowers, they are both endowed and burdened with an exquisite sensitivity to the inhabited, living world, and, also like the orchid, have both frailties that can threaten their existence and health, as well as hidden capacities for lives of beauty, honesty, and notable achievement. Make no mistake, however, that

She's worked alongside him as they built their house on the vacant lot behind the sweet house and cultivated a small but fertile patch of cassava and sweet potatoes. Along the side wall of the house, a paradise of colors: tender pink hibiscus, fiery flamingo flowers, delicate purple orchids, and plump, juicy red protea.

Blue lady orchid Meaning: Consumed by love Thelymitra crinita | Western Australia Perennial spring-flowering orchid. Flowers are intensely blue and form a delicate star shape. Does not need a bushfire to stimulate flowering, but can be smothered by other vegetation, so periodic burns to restrict taller-growing shrubs are beneficial.

Orchids are considered the most highly evolved flowering plants on earth. They are unusual in form, uncommonly beautiful in color, often powerfully fragrant, intricate in structure, and different from any other family of plants. The reason for their unusualness has always been puzzled over. One guess is that orchids might have evolved in soil that was naturally irradiated by a meteor or mineral deposit, and that the radiation is what mutated them into thousands of amazing forms... In 1678 the botanist Jakob Breyne wrote: "The manifold shape of these flowers arouses our highest admiration. They take on the form of little birds, of lizards, of insects. They look like a man, like a woman, sometimes like an austere, sinister figure, sometimes like a clown who excites our laughter. They represent the image of a lazy tortoise, a melancholy toad, an agile, ever-chattering monkey." Orchids have always been thought of as beautiful but strange. A wildflower guide published in 1917 called them "our queer freaks.

The vanilla bean is the fruit of a species of orchid native to southeastern Mexico, and it is unusually difficult to cultivate. Like most orchids, it is an epiphyte, meaning that its roots need to be exposed to air, not soil. It climbs the trunks of trees, thriving in limbs a hundred feet aboveground, and unfurls just one flower per day over a two-month period, awaiting pollination by a single species of tiny stingless bee, Melipona beecheii. If the flower is pollinated, a pod develops over the next six to eight months. And although the pods contain thousands of tiny seeds, they are incapable of germinating unless they are in the presence of a particular mycorrhizal fungus.

We also fight our war against hail and storm, against drought and deprivation, against the sharp blade of the weeding hoe and the poisonous emanations of the herbicide-sprayer. We also have a claim on time, and we deserve a god who understands that every day in the life of the common flower is a day of battle.” -An orchid to the God of War

Ordering online was all about ticking boxes. Species. Color. Size. Number. Grade of quality. Degree of openness. But there was something miraculous about seeing the flowers she'd imagined brought to life. Roses from Columbia. Chrysanthemums from Ecuador. Orchids from Thailand. Anemones and agapanthus from Spain. Stargazers and parrot tulips from the vast Dutch flower fields.

She walked indoors, and staring once more at her orchids, thought to herself: ‘Flowers have their spring-time, a time for fresh blossoms and young leaves. I am young, but frail as the willow that dreads the first breath of autumn… If all turns out for the best, I may grow stronger yet. But if not, my fate will be like that of the fallen petals at spring’s end, driven by the rain and tossed in the wind…

I have important things to tell you, but who can concentrate with all that racket?" That "racket" turned out to be because of flowers, hundreds of them, arriving by the cartful. Roses, orchids, lilies, daffodils, irises, and a dozen other varieties that she could not name. Heavy porcelain vases were mounted all around the grand ballroom and the royal gardens, displaying the arrangements in all their grandeur. But one arrangement stood out from the rest. From the duchess's window, Cinderella watched the gardeners erect a trellis studded with roses. When the palace staff wheeled out a barrow of flowers, white pearlescent roses intertwined with pink ones as flushed as the height of sunrise, she nearly gasped. Her parents' favorite flowers. White and pink roses, with a touch of myrtle. Charles had been listening.

Earlier that morning, Escoffier ad brought up a large bucket of white rose petals, white violets and vanilla orchids that he'd been thinking of creating a dish with. The pâtissier had crystalized some of the flowers, and left him a plate of meringue shells, a handful of vanilla beans and fresh cream. He wanted to create a new dish for Sarah, a sweet, something surprising, something to engage her. She'd been playing Joan of Arc, the virgin saint, a seventeen-year-old girl. It was a role she made famous, difficult at any age, but for a woman in her mid-forties, it was nearly impossible. Escoffier tossed a handful of white rose petals into Rosa's bathwater. The white skin. The white roses. 'The essence of Saint Joan is in shades of white, like shades of innocence.' 'Spun sugar,' he thought. 'Vanilla cream, of course.

I had come to love the space, and I could see why Lady Anna had too. The orchids were positively glorious. She'd tagged each flower with its proper botanical name, but I favored the pet names she'd given each bloom. For instance, a stunning pink 'Cattleya' was named "Lady Catalina." And a yellow 'Oncidium,' which to me looked like a flock of ladies in fluffy party dresses, was called "Lady Aralia of the Bayou.

He hopes the plant doesn't freeze to death before he can give it to her. He pictures her face when she opens the bag and sees it. A whole load of dark purple flowers stuck onto a tiny bendy stem like a bunch of butterflies about to fly off. Exposed roots like knobbly toes climbing over the rim of the plastic pot as if the whole thing is planning to get out and do a runner first chance it gets. It's a moth orchid.

He hopes the plants doesn't freeze to death before he can give it to her. He pictures her face when she opens the bag and sees it. A whole load of dark purple flowers stuck onto a tiny bendy stem like a bunch of butterflies about to fly off. Exposed roots like knobbly toes climbing over the rim of the plastic pot as if the whole thing is planning to get out and do a runner first chance it gets. It's a moth orchid.

extraordinary, biologically embedded sensitivities that render such children so unduly susceptible to the hazards and adversities of life make them also more receptive to the gifts and promises of life. Therein lies an intriguing and life-giving secret: that orchids are not broken dandelions but a different, more subtle kind of flower. Within the struggles and frailties of orchids lies an unimagined strength and redemptive beauty.

Are those chocolate chip?'' Cole reaches her first and claims one. ''Oh, my godness.'' Nana sets the tray aside and coos the guy. ''Cole, dear, you have a boulder-size knot on your jaw.'' ''River did it.'' Cole smirks at the guy. ''And he insulted my mom. And my dad.'' ''River Marks.'' Nana shakes her head, as if her heart is acually breaking. ''How could you be so rough? And so insensitive!'' River glares at Cole before bowing his head. ''I'm sorry, Nana.'' ''The human body is like a flower. Treat it well, and it will bloom.'' She approaches the ring and extends two cookies. River and I accept with eager thanks. ''Let's be kind to each other and keep our punches away from the face and groin.'' ''Yes, ma'am,'' we say in unison. Then of course, we devour the offering as if we've never tasted sugar. ''Good, good.'' She brushes the crumbs from her fingers. ''I'll leave you kids to your practice.'' She kisses Ali, then Cole, and leaves. ''Are you a rose?'' River sneers at Cole. ''Or a lilly?'' ''Orchid. And your jealousy is showing.'' Cole responds.

There were orchids for sale, for one and two and three and five hundred dollars, a madhouse of orchids in every color, in every shape, with wide leaves and skinny leaves and no leaves at all, with fat jutting lips and lips cupped like thimbles, and with blackish-red hoods and freckles, with ruffles, with pleats, with corkscrew curls, big as fists, small as fingernails, smelling of honey, grass, citrus, cinnamon, or of nothing, not a smell at all but just the heavy warm quality that air has after it has been sitting in a flower.

I wanted a Fakahatchee ghost orchid, in full bloom, maybe attached to a gnarled piece of custard apple tree, and I wanted its roots to spread as broad as my hand and each root to be only as wide as a toothpick. I wanted the bloom to be snow-white, white as sugar, white as lather, white as teeth. I knew its shape by heart, the peaked face with the droopy mustache of petals, the albino toad with its springy legs. It would not be the biggest or the showiest or the rarest or the finest flower here, except to me, because I wanted it.

walked by. “Remember, they love tricking people in Wonderland,” Alex whispered. “Don’t talk to any of them.” “Hello there,” a rose said. “Welcome to the garden,” said a tulip. “Wouldn’t you like to stay and hear us sing a song?” an orchid asked. The group took Alex’s advice to heart and walked past the flowers without making eye contact. They kept their eyes on the ground until they were out of the garden. “If I haven’t seen that in a nightmare before, I definitely will now,” Conner said. They looked up and their hearts beat with excitement. In the distance, on the edge of a wood

I took a cautious step inside, marveling at the sight before me. A vast conservatory awaited, or what 'once' was a conservatory. Sunlight beamed through the enormous glass roof. I realized that its position at the center of the house precluded its visibility from below. In awe, my heart beating wildly, I lingered in an arbor covered with bright pink bougainvillea, with a trunk so thick, it was larger than my waist. Most of it had died off, but a single healthy vine remained, and it burst with magenta blossoms. I could smell citrus warming in the sunlight, and I immediately noticed the source: an old potted lemon tree in the far corner. 'This must have been Lady Anna's.' I walked along the leaf-strewn pathway to a table that had clearly once showcased dozens of orchids. Now it was an orchid graveyard. Only their brown, shriveled stems remained, but I could imagine how they'd looked in their prime. I smiled when I picked up a tag from one of the pots. 'Lady Fiona Bixby. She must have given them her own names.' Perhaps there hadn't been anything sinister going on in the orchard, after all. Lady Anna was clearly a creative spirit, and maybe that played out in her gardens and the names she gave to her flowers and trees.

Hothouse Flowers" I hate the flower of wood or common field. I cannot love the primrose nor regret The death of any shrinking violet, Nor even the cultured garden's banal yield. The silver lips of lilies virginal, The full deep bosom of the enchanted rose Please less than flowers glass-hid from frost and snows For whom an alien heat makes festival. I love those flowers reared by man's careful art, Of heady scents and colors: strong of heart Or weak that die beneath the touch of knife, Some rich as sin and some as virtue pale, And some as subtly infamous and frail As she whose love still eats my soul and life.

I was too awestruck to speak. Vines of bright pink flowers danced over a wrought-iron arbor. I recognized them immediately as the very same variety, bougainvillea, that grew in Greenhouse No. 4 at the New York Botanical Garden. Just beyond, two potted trees stood at attention- a lemon, its shiny yellow globes glistening in the sunlight, and what looked like an orange, studded with the tiniest fruit I'd ever seen. "What is this?" I asked, fascinated. "A kumquat," she said. "Lady Anna used to pick them for the children." She reached out to pluck one of the tiny oranges from the tree. "Here, try for yourself." I held it in my hand, admiring its smooth, shiny skin. I sank my teeth into the flesh of the fruit. Its thin skin disintegrated in my mouth, releasing a burst of sweet and sour that made my eyes shoot open and a smile spread across my face. "Oh, my," I said. "I've never had anything like it." Mrs. Dilloway nodded. "You should try the clementines, then. They're Persian." I walked a few paces further, admiring the potted orchids- at least a hundred specimens, so exquisite they looked like Southern belles in hoop skirts. On the far wall were variegated ferns, bleeding hearts, and a lilac tree I could smell from the other end of the room.

I looked up at the moon and stars through the glass roof above and gasped at the stunning sight, like a mural painted by a great artist. No wonder Lady Anna had loved this place. I walked to the orchids and plucked a weed from a small terra-cotta pot that held a speckled pink and white flower. "There you are, beautiful," I whispered, releasing a patch of clover roots from the bark near the orchid's stem. "Is that better?" In the quiet of the night, I could almost hear the flower sigh. I walked to the water spigot and filled a green watering can to the brim, then sprinkled the flower and her comrades. I marveled at how the droplets sparkled in the moonlight.

Here are three things I know for sure: 1. When I was born, someone- I like to think it was my mother- wrapped me in a blue ball gown. 2. There is a color in this world that was named after a king's daughter, who always wore gowns that were made of exactly the same shade of blue. The stories about her make me wish sometimes I could have been friends with her; she smoked in public (at a time when women didn't), once jumped fully clothed into a swimming pool with the captain of a ship, often wore a boa constrictor around her neck, and another time shot at telegraph poles from a moving train. 3. My favorite story goes like this: once, on an island not far from here, there was a queen who climbed a tree waiting for her husband to return from a battle. She tied herself to a branch and vowed to remain there until he returned. She waited for so long that she slowly transformed into an orchid, which was an exact replica of the pattern on the blue gown she was wearing. Here's one more thing that I know for sure is true. On the day June told us she was going to hospital to bring you home, I was in the workshop pressing blue lady orchids. I've always loved them best because their centres are my favorite color: the color of the gown I was once wrapped in. The color of a king's wayward daughter favored. A color called Alice blue.

I read lots of local newspapers and particularly the shortest articles in them, and most particularly any articles that are full of words in combinations that are arresting. In the case of the orchid story I was interested to see the words 'swamp' and 'orchids' and 'Seminoles' and 'cloning' and 'criminal' together in one short piece. Sometimes this kind of story turns out to be something more, some glimpse of life that expands like those Japanese paper balls you drop in water and then after a moment they bloom into flowers, and the flower is so marvelous that you can't believe there was a time when all you saw in front of you was a paper ball and a glass of water.

Now Flush knew what men can never know—love pure, love simple, love entire; love that brings no train of care in its wake; that has no shame; no remorse; that is here, that is gone, as the bee on the flower is here and is gone. Today the flower is a rose, tomorrow a lily; now it is the wild thistle on the moor, now the pouched and portentous orchid of the conservatory. So variously, so carelessly Flush embraced the spotted spaniel down the alley, and the brindled dog and the yellow dog—it did not matter which. To Flush it was all the same. He followed the horn wherever the horn blew and the wind wafted it. Love was all; love was enough. No one blamed him for his escapades.

A Rakshasi did not live here. A princess did. I was staring into the most dazzling garden I had ever seen. Cobblestone pathways meandered between rows of salmon-hued hibiscus, regal hollyhock, delicate impatiens, wild orchids, thorny rosebushes, and manicured shrubs starred with jasmine. Bunches of bougainvillea cascaded down the sides of the wall, draped across the stone like extravagant shawls. Magnolia trees, cotton-candy pink, were interspersed with coconut trees, which let in streaks of purplish light through their fanlike leaves. A rock-rimmed pond glistened in a corner of the garden, and lotus blossoms sprouting from green discs skimmed its surface. A snow white bird that looked like a peacock wove in and out through a grove of pomegranate trees, which were set aflame by clusters of deep orange blossoms. I had seen blue peacocks before, but never a white one. An Ashoka tree stood at one edge of the garden, as if on guard, near the door. A brief wind sent a cluster of red petals drifting down from its branches and settling on the ground at my feet. A flock of pale blue butterflies emerged from a bed of golden trumpet flowers and sailed up into the sky. In the center of this scene was a peach stucco cottage with green shutters and a thatched roof, quaint and idyllic as a dollhouse. A heavenly perfume drifted over the wall, intoxicating me- I wanted nothing more than to enter.

He liked to compare a horticulturist’s shop to a microcosm in which all the categories of society were represented: the flowers that are poor and coarse, the flowers of the slum, which are not truly at home unless reposing on a garret window sill, their roots jammed into a milk bottle or an old pot, the sunflower for example; the pretentious, conformist, stupid flowers, like the rose, which belong exclusively in porcelain holders painted by young girls; finally the flowers of high lineage such as orchids, delicate and charming and quiveringly sensitive to cold, exotic flowers exiled in Paris to the warmth of glass palaces, princesses of the vegetable kingdom, living a segregated life, having no longer anything in common with the plants of the street or the flora of the middle class.

There is a deep stillness in the Fakahatchee, but there is not a moment of physical peace. Something is always brushing against you or lapping at you or snagging at you or tangling in your legs, and the sun is always pummeling your skin, and the wetness in the air makes your hair coil like a phone cord. You never smell plain air in a swamp - you smell the tang of mud and the sourness of rotting leaves and the cool musk of new leaves and the perfumes of a million different flowers floating by, each distinct but transparent, like soap bubbles. The biggest number in the universe would not be big enough to count the things your eyes see. Every inch of land holds up a thatch of tall grass or a bush or a tree, and every bush or tree is girdled with another plant’s roots, and every root is topped with a flower or a fern or a swollen bulb, and every one of those flowers and ferns is the pivot around which a world of bees and gnats and spiders and dragonflies revolve. The sounds you hear are twigs cracking underfoot and branches whistling past you and leaves murmuring and leaves slopping over the trunks of old dead trees and every imaginable and unimaginable insect noise and every kind of bird peep and screech and tootle, and then all those unclaimed sounds of something moving in a hurry, something low to the ground and heavy, maybe the size of a horse in the shape of a lizard, or maybe the size, shape and essential character of a snake. In the swamp you feel as if someone had plugged all of your senses into a light socket. A swamp is logy and slow-moving about at the same time highly overstimulating. Even in the dim, sultry places deep within it, it is easy to stay awake.

In the kitchen, she made passionflower tea, turning the jar of loose leaves in her hand while a teaspoon's worth steeped in her mug. The tea was local, made from an herb that rarely grew in New England but did on Quinnipeague. A natural sedative, passionflower was another of Cecily Cole's gems. The tea was still steeping when she decided she was hungry. On impulse, she took a jar of strawberry jam from the cupboard. It, too, was local, put up the fall before by one of the island women. Unscrewing the lid, she pried a layer of wax from the top and, taking a spoon, sampled it straight from the jar. She closed her eyes, isolating the sense of taste for the greatest enjoyment. Strawberries... and vanilla? Eyes popping open, she peered into the glass until she spotted the bean among the berries. A single bean. No surprise there. Vanilla beans came from a variety of orchid that had no business growing up on Quinnipeague, but did. Not only was the flower a more vivid yellow than elsewhere, but the bean was potent.

We remembered the delicate fig-shaped island,stranded between the American Empire and peaceful Canada, as it had been years ago, with its welcoming red white-and-blue flag-shaped flower bed,splashing fountains, European casino, and horse paths leading through woods where Indians had bent trees into giant bows. Now grass grew inpatches down to the littered beach where children fished with pop topstied to string. Paint flaked from once-bright gazebos. Drinking fountains rose from mud puddles laid with broken brick stepping stones. Along the road the granite face of the Civil War Hero had been spray-painted black. Mrs. Huntington Perry had donated her prize orchids to the Botanical Garden in the time before the riots, when civic money still ran high, but since her death ion the eroding tax base had forced cutbacks that had laid off one skilled gardener a year, so that plants that had survived transplantation from equatorial regions to bloom again in that false paradise now withered, weeds sprang up amid scrupulous identification tags, and fake sunlight flowed for only a few hours per day. The only thing that remained was the steam vapor, beading the sloping greenhouse windows and filling our nostrils with the moisture and aroma of a rotting world

The speaker standing on an upturned barrel at the intersection of 135th Street and Seventh Avenue was shouting monotonously: “BLACK POWER! BLACK POWER! Is you is? Or is you ain’t? We gonna march this night! March! March! March! Oh, when the saints — yeah, baby! We gonna march this night!” Spit flew from his looselipped mouth. His flabby jowls flopped up and down. His rough brown skin was greasy with sweat. His dull red eyes looked tired. “Mistah Charley been scared of BLACK POWER since the day one. That’s why Noah shuffled us off to Africa the time of the flood. And all this time we been laughing to keep from whaling.” He mopped his sweating face with a red bandanna handkerchief. He belched and swallowed. His eyes looked vacant. His mouth hung open as though searching for words. “Can’t keep this up,” he said under his breath. No one heard him. No one noticed his behavior. No one cared. He swallowed loudly and screamed. “TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT! We launch our whale boats. Iss the night of the great white whale. You dig me, baby?” He was a big man and flabby all over like his jowls. Night had fallen but the black night air was as hot as the bright day air, only there was less of it. His white short-sleeved shirt was sopping wet. A ring of sweat had formed about the waist of his black alpaca pants as though the top of his potbelly had begun to melt. “You want a good house? You got to whale! You want a good car? You got to whale! You want a good job? You got to whale! You dig me?” His conked hair was dripping sweat. For a big flabby middle-aged man who would have looked more at home in a stud poker game, he was unbelievably hysterical. He waved his arms like an erratic windmill. He cut a dance step. He shuffled like a prizefighter. He shadowed with clenched fists. He shouted. Spit flew. “Whale! Whale! WHALE, WHITEY! WE GOT THE POWER! WE IS BLACK! WE IS PURE!” A crowd of Harlem citizens dressed in holiday garb had assembled to listen. They crowded across the sidewalks, into the street, blocking traffic. They were clad in the chaotic colors of a South American jungle. They could have been flowers growing on the banks of the Amazon, wild orchids of all colors. Except for their voices. “What’s he talking ’bout?” a high-yellow chick with bright red hair wearing a bright green dress that came down just below her buttocks asked the tall slim black man with smooth carved features and etched hair. “Hush yo’ mouth an’ lissen,” he replied harshly, giving her a furious look from the corners of muddy, almond-shaped eyes. “He tellin’ us what black power mean!

The walls behind the counter had deep floor-to-ceiling shelves for vases and jam jars and scented candles, and there was an old wrought-iron revolving stand for cards. But most of the space in the long, narrow shop was taken up with flowers and plants. Today there were fifty-two kinds of cut blooms, from the tiny cobalt-blue violets that were smaller than Lara's little fingernail to a purple-and-green-frilled brassica that was bigger than her head. The flowers were set out in gleaming metal buckets and containers of every shape and size. They were lined up on the floor three deep and stacked on the tall three-tier stand in the middle of the shop. The plants, huge leafy ferns and tiny fleshy succulents, lemon trees and jasmine bushes and freckled orchids, were displayed on floating shelves that were built at various heights all the way up to the ceiling. Lara had spent weeks getting the lighting right. There were a few soft spotlights above the flower displays, and an antique crystal chandelier hung low above the counter. There were strings of fairy lights and dozens of jewel-colored tea lights and tall, slender lanterns dotted between the buckets. When they were lit, they cast star and crescent moon shapes along the walls and the shop resembled the courtyard of a Moroccan riad- a tiny walled garden right in the middle of the city.

Is that an orchid?" I asked, pointing to a particularly unattractive small brown plant. "Maxillaria tenuifolia," said Sonali. "One of my favorites. This little brown orchid is a species. Not as spectacular as a hybrid, but very satisfying nonetheless. Its charms are quite powerful. Come closer and smell it." I leaned over the ugly brown plant. "Coconut pie! How is that possible?" "Wonderful, isn't it? She doesn't need bright, flashy colors or spectacular sprays of flowers. Her pollinators, the moths, come out at night. She uses her coconut scent to guide and entice the little moth in much the way we use perfume to entice men in nightclubs and cafés." Sonali winked at me. "You can learn much about how an orchid is pollinated by the way it looks. White, pink, and pale-green flowers usually get pollinated at night, since those colors are easily seen under moonlight. The little moth sneaks up on the flower in the middle of the night like a lover. He lands on her, pollinates her, and then leaves. We've all had that experience, yes?" "Yes," I said, thinking of Exley. "Brightly colored orchids, on the other hand, are pollinated by butterflies and birds. Butterflies prefer red and orange. Bees love orange and yellow all the way through to ultraviolet." "Just like certain men like certain color clothing," I said. "Yes, colored petals are the clothing of flowers. The insect must find a way through those petals to get what he wants, like a man brushing his hand through the layers of a woman's skirt.

In broad terms, the Second Law asserts that things get worse. A bit more specifically, it acknowledges that matter and energy tend to disperse in disorder. Left to itself, matter crumbles and energy spreads. The chaotic motion of molecules of a gas results in them spreading through the container the gas occupies. The vigorous jostling of atoms in a hot lump of metal jostles the atoms in its cooler surroundings, the energy spreads away, and the metal cools. That’s all there is to natural change: spreading in disorder. The astonishing thing, though, is that this natural spreading can result in the emergence of exquisite form. If the spreading is captured in an engine, then bricks may be hoisted to build a cathedral. If the spreading occurs in a seed, then molecules may be hoisted to build an orchid. If the spreading occurs in your body, then random electrical and molecular currents in your brain may be organized into an opinion. The spreading of matter and energy is the root of all change. Wherever change occurs, be it corrosion, corruption, growth, decay, flowering, artistic creation, exquisite creation, understanding, reproduction, cancer, fun, accident, quiet or boisterous enjoyment, travel, or just simple pointless motion it is an outward manifestation of this inner spring, the purposeless spreading of matter and energy in ever greater disorder. Like it or not, purposeless decay into disorder is the spring of all change, even when that change is exquisite or results in seemingly purposeful action.

Large-leafed plants at the edge of the jungle reflected the sun rather than soaking it up, their dark green surfaces sparkling white in the sunlight. Some of the smaller ones had literally low-hanging fruit, like jewels from a fairy tale. Behind them was an extremely inviting path into the jungle with giant white shells for stepping-stones. And rather than the muggy, disease-filled forests of books that seemed to kill so many explorers, here the air was cool and pleasant and not too moist- although Wendy could hear the distant tinkle of water splashing from a height. "Oh! Is that the Tonal Spring? Or Diamond Falls?" Wendy withered breathlessly. "Luna, let's go see!" She made herself not race ahead down the path, but moved at a leisurely, measured pace. Like an adventuress sure of herself but wary of her surroundings. (And yet, as she wouldn't realize until later, she hadn't thought to grab her stockings or shoes. Those got left in her hut without even a simple goodbye.) Everywhere she looked, Wendy found another wonder of Never Land, from the slow camosnails to the gently nodding heads of the fritillary lilies. She smiled, imagining John as he peered over his glasses and the snail faded away into the background in fear- or Michael getting his nose covered in honey-scented lily pollen as he enthusiastically sniffed the pretty flowers. The path continued, winding around a boulder into a delightful little clearing, sandy but padded here and there with tuffets of emerald green grass and clumps of purple orchids. It was like a desert island vacation of a perfect English meadow.

At the end of the evening, when Winterborne was donning his hat and gloves in the entrance hall, Helen impulsively picked up her potted orchid from a table in the drawing room, and brought it to him. “Mr. Winterborne,” she said earnestly, “I would like very much for you to have this.” He gave her a questioning glance as she pushed the pot into his hands. “It’s a Blue Vanda orchid,” she explained. “What should I do with it?” “You might wish to keep it in a place where you can see it often. Remember that it doesn’t like to be cold and wet, or hot and dry. Whenever it’s moved to a new environment, the Vanda usually becomes distressed, so don’t be alarmed if a flower shrivels and drops off. Generally it’s best not to set it where there may be a draft, or too much sun. Or too much shadow. And never place it next to a bowl of fruit.” She gave him an encouraging glance. “Later, I’ll give you a special tonic to mist over it.” As Winterborne stared at the exotic flower in his hands with perplexed reluctance, Helen began to regret her spontaneous action. He didn’t seem to want the gift, but she couldn’t very well ask to have it back. “You needn’t take it if you don’t want it,” she said. “I would understand--” “I want it.” Winterborne looked into her eyes and smiled slightly. “Thank you.” Helen nodded and watched forlornly as he departed with the orchid caught firmly in his grasp. “You gave him the Blue Vanda,” Pandora said in wonder, coming to stand beside her. “Yes.” Cassandra came to her other side. “The most diabolically temperamental orchid of your entire collection.” Helen sighed. “Yes.” “He’ll kill it within a week,” Kathleen said flatly. “Any of us would.” “Yes.” “Then why did you give it to him?” Helen frowned and gestured with her palms up. “I wanted him to have something special.” “He has thousands of special things from all over the world,” Pandora pointed out. “Something special from me,” Helen clarified gently, and no one asked her about it after that.

In 1853, Haussmann began the incredible transformation of Paris, reconfiguring the city into 20 manageable arrondissements, all linked with grand, gas-lit boulevards and new arteries of running water to feed large public parks and beautiful gardens influenced greatly by London’s Kew Gardens. In every quarter, the indefatigable prefect, in concert with engineer Jean-Charles Alphand, refurbished neglected estates such as Parc Monceau and the Jardin du Luxembourg, and transformed royal hunting enclaves into new parks such as enormous Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes. They added romantic Parc des Buttes Chaumont and Parc Montsouris in areas that were formerly inhospitable quarries, as well as dozens of smaller neighborhood gardens that Alphand described as "green and flowering salons." Thanks to hothouses that sprang up in Paris, inspired by England’s prefabricated cast iron and glass factory buildings and huge exhibition halls such as the Crystal Palace, exotic blooms became readily available for small Parisian gardens. For example, nineteenth-century metal and glass conservatories added by Charles Rohault de Fleury to the Jardin des Plantes, Louis XIII’s 1626 royal botanical garden for medicinal plants, provided ideal conditions for orchids, tulips, and other plant species from around the globe. Other steel structures, such as Victor Baltard’s 12 metal and glass market stalls at Les Halles in the 1850s, also heralded the coming of Paris’s most enduring symbol, Gustave Eiffel’s 1889 Universal Exposition tower, and the installation of steel viaducts for trains to all parts of France. Word of this new Paris brought about emulative City Beautiful movements in most European capitals, and in the United States, Bois de Boulogne and Parc des Buttes Chaumont became models for Frederick Law Olmsted’s Central Park in New York. Meanwhile, for Parisians fascinated by the lakes, cascades, grottoes, lawns, flowerbeds, and trees that transformed their city from just another ancient capital into a lyrical, magical garden city, the new Paris became a textbook for cross-pollinating garden ideas at any scale. Royal gardens and exotic public pleasure grounds of the Second Empire became springboards for gardens such as Bernard Tschumi’s vast, conceptual Parc de La Villette, with its modern follies, and “wild” jardins en mouvement at the Fondation Cartier and the Musée du Quai Branly. In turn, allées of trees in some classic formal gardens were allowed to grow freely or were interleaved with wildflower meadows and wild grasses for their unsung beauty. Private gardens hidden behind hôtel particulier walls, gardens in spacious suburbs, city courtyards, and minuscule rooftop terraces, became expressions of old and very new gardens that synthesized nature, art, and outdoors living.

Natural beauty, for Darwin, was not just aesthetic; it always reflected function and adaptation at work. Orchids were not just ornamental, to be displayed in a garden or a bouquet; they were wonderful contrivances, examples of nature’s imagination, natural selection, at work. Flowers required no Creator, but were wholly intelligible as products of accident and selection, of tiny incremental changes extending over hundreds of millions of years. This, for Darwin, was the meaning of flowers, the meaning of all adaptations, plant and animal, the meaning of natural selection.

Forgive me for interrupting your task," Devon said to Helen after they were introduced. A hesitant smile emerged. "Not at all, my lord. I'm merely observing the orchids to make certain there is nothing they lack." "How can you tell what they lack?" Devon asked. "I see the color of their leaves, or the condition of the petals. I look for signs of aphids or thrips, and I try to remember which varieties prefer moist soil and which ones like to be drier." "Will you show them to me?" Devon asked. Helen nodded and led him along the rows, pointing out particular specimens. "This was all my mother's collection. One of her favorites was Peristeria elata." She showed him a plant with marble-white blossom. "The central part of the flower resembles a tiny dove, you see? And this one is Dendrobium aemulum. It's called a feather orchid because of the petals." With a flash of shy mischief, Helen glanced back at Kathleen and remarked, "My sister-in-law isn't fond of orchids." "I despise them," Kathleen said, wrinkling her nose. "Stingy, demanding flowers that take forever to bloom. And some of them smell like old boots or rancid meat." "Those aren't my favorite," Helen admitted. "But I hope to love them someday. Sometimes one must love something before it becomes lovable.

White Lilies" Flowers rare and sweet I sent, whose delicate white Should, grouping at her corsage, interlace Their purity with her corrupted grace, With the full throat and mouth of my delight. Evil design! To see the pale flowers slight The beauty of the worn and powdered face, Mingling their costly virtue with the trace Of ancient loves that live in time's despite. How soon they died, poor blossoms! at her throat Ere of the last valse died the last sad note No more than love of her meant to endure, For all the savour of her lips, the spice Of her frail spirit steeped in cultured vice, Gracefully bad and delicately impure!

Full-size palm trees jutted up towards the glass ceiling. Orchids dripped from the walls and the palm trunks. Birds of paradise filled the room with bright red flowers. The guests were seated in rows of chairs lined up to face a waterfall that landed in a crystal-clear pool behind the minister.

world. I had vowed that I would acquire not even a single orchid on any of my trips down here, but I thought I might die if I couldn’t have this one. The background of the petals was the beigey yellow of a legal pad, and over the yellow background was a spray of hot-pink pinpoint dots, and the flower was attached to the plant by a stem that was twisted like a stick of licorice. The petals were plump and supple and pleasant to touch. The center of the flower looked like the face of a piglet. I felt as if the plant was looking at me as much as I was looking at it.

When we stopped to rest and Tony tried to figure out what was wrong with his compass, I asked him what he thought it was about orchids that seduced humans so completely that they were compelled to steal them and worship them and try to breed new and specific kinds of them and then be willing to wait for nearly a decade for one of them to flower. "Oh, mystery, beauty, unknowability, I suppose," he said, shrugging. "Besides, I think the real reason is that life has no meaning. I mean, no obvious meaning. You wake up, you go to work, you do stuff. I think everybody's always looking for something a little unusual that can preoccupy them and help them pass the time.

Nothing in science can account for the way people feel about orchids. Orchids seem to drive people crazy. Those who love them love them madly. Orchids arouse passion more than romance. They are the sexiest flowers on earth. The name "orchid" derives from the Latin orchis, which means testicle. This refers not only to the testicle-shaped tubers of the plant but to the fact that it was long believed that orchids sprang from the spilled semen of mating animals. The British Herbal Guide of 1653 advised that orchids be used with discretion. "They are hot and moist in operation, under the dominion of Venus, and provoke lust exceedingly." In Victorian England the orchid hobby grew so consuming that it was sometimes called "orchidelirium"; under its influence many seemingly normal people, once smitten with orchids, became less like normal people and more like John Laroche. Even now, there is something delirious in orchid collecting. Every orchid lover I met told me the same story - how one plant in the kitchen had led to a dozen, and then to a backyard greenhouse, and then, in some cases, to multiple greenhouses and collecting trips to Asia and Africa and an ever-expanding orchid budget and a desire for oddities so stingy in their rewards that only a serious collector could appreciate them - orchids like the Stanhopea, which blooms only once a year for at most one day. "The bug hits you," a collector from Guatemala explained to me. "You can join A.A. to quit drinking, but once you get into orchids you can't do anything to kick the habit.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation. That has always been part of its charm. Laroche loved orchids, but I came to believe he loved the difficulty and fatality of getting them almost as much as the flowers themselves. The worse a time he had in the swamp the more enthusiastic he would be about the plants he'd come out with. Laroche's perverse pleasure in misery was traditional among orchid hunters. An article published in a 1906 magazine explained: "Most of the romance in connection with the cult of the orchid is in the collecting of specimens from the localities in which they grow, perhaps in a fever swamp or possibly in a country full of hostile natives ready and eager to kill and very likely eat the enterprising collector." In 1901 eight orchid hunters went on an expedition to the Philippines. Within a month one of them had been eaten by a tiger; another had been drenched with oil and burned alive; five had vanished into thin air; and one had managed to stay alive and walk out of the woods carrying forty-seven thousand Phalaenopsis plants. A young man commissioned in 1889 to find cattleyas for the English collector Sir Trevor Lawrence walked of fourteen days through jungle mud and never was seen again. Dozens of hunters were killed by fever or accidents or malaria or foul play. Others became trophies for headhunters or prey for horrible creatures such as flying yellow lizards and diamondback snakes and jaguars and ticks and stinging marabuntas. Some orchid hunters were killed by other orchid hunters. All of them traveled ready for violence. Albert Millican, who went on an expedition in the northern Andes in 1891, wrote in his diary that the most important supplies he was carrying were his knives, cutlasses, revolvers, daggers, rifles, pistols, and a year's worth of tobacco. Being an orchid hunter has always meant pursuing beautiful things in terrible places. From the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, when orchid hunting was at its prime, terrible places were really terrible places, and any man advertising himself as a hunter needed to be hardy, sharp, and willing to die far from home.

Once we started with the orchids, we've never looked back," he said. "I grew to be quite in love with them, you know. I like them because they're slightly evil and slightly mysterious, don't you think? In the early days I found it hard to make them flower, and when I did, it was a great, great triumph. They are a great, great challenge. They sulk, they pout, they ignore you. But it's onward with the orchids!

Once we started with the orchids we've never looked back," he said. "I grew to be quite in love with them, you know. I like them because they're slightly evil and slightly mysterious, don't you think? In the early days I found it hard to make them flower, and when I did, it was a great, great triumph. They are a great, great challenge. They sulk, they pout, they ignore you. But it's been onward with the orchids!"... "Do any of your kids have orchids?" He laughed and said, "I have a son who is thirty-nine and I'm sure he wants to get his hands on my orchids. I think he's quite eagerly waiting for me to die.

The day on which she turned eleven, Grandfather Bill had presented her with her very own orchid. "This is especially for you, Julia. Its name is 'Aerides odoratum,' which means 'children of the air.'" Julia studied the delicate ivory and pink petals of the flower sitting in its pot. They felt velvety beneath her touch. "Where does this one come from, Grandfather Bill?" she had asked. "From the Orient, in the jungles of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand." "Oh. What kind of music do you think it likes?" "It seems particularly partial to a touch of Mozart," chuckled her grandfather. "Or if it looks like it's wilting, perhaps you could try some Chopin!

Globe in hand, Grace slowly approached the big orchid, white and fragile and absolutely gorgeous. She very carefully slid the globe over it, and as she was doing so, she put her face into the center of the open flower, smiling as the breathtaking fragrance washed over her- luscious and nectared, candied apricots, airy notes of strange spice.

It was as Frank said: the Sparrow Sisters Nursery had quite a reputation. Sally told Henry about the Nursery that was now a landmark in the town. The plants that grew in tidy rows, the orchids that swayed delicately in the beautiful glass greenhouses, and the herbs and vegetables sown in knot gardens around the land were much in demand. Sorrel had planted a dense little Shakespeare garden as a tribute to her reading habits. The lavender, rosemary, roses and honeysuckle, clematis and pansies, creeping thyme and sage were not for sale in that garden, but Sorrel would re-create versions of it for clients whose big houses on the water needed the stamp of culture, even if their owners had little idea what their lovely gardens meant.

Nat discovered Woman. He didn't have to marry to do so, for each one was his bride. They offered themselves to him: he could take his choice, and the longing ache within him was stilled, for he found in London a garden of earthly delights. Women here were not rare out-of-reach orchids but a riotous summer-bed of flowers nodding in the sunshine, inviting, pleading to be plucked. They brought fulfilment to his starved senses. He drank their intoxicating nectar, drowned in their overwhelming

Quincel de Morhban received me in his garden, something I never would have suspected, from either the man or the place. It was an inner sanctum, like Delaunay’s, like I had known in the Night Court, only vaster. It was shielded from the elements, warmed by a dozen braziers and torches, with mirrors set to gather the sun’s heat when it availed, and scrims of sheerest silk that could be drawn across the open roof to protect the delicate flora. In all defiance of the early spring chill, a riot of flowers bloomed: spikenard and foxglove, azalea, Lady’s slipper and Love-Not-Lost, orchids and phlox, lavender and roses. “You are pleased,” de Morhban said softly. He stood beside a small fountain, awaiting me; his eyes drank in the sight of me. “It costs me thousands of ducats to maintain this place. I have one master gardener from L’Agnace, and one from Namarre, and they are ever at odds with each other. But I reckon it worth the cost. I am D’Angeline. So we count the cost of pleasure.” He reached out one hand for me. “So I count your cost.

The reception tent was rigged with a custom lighting system that projected twinkling constellations in an evening sky. Every table had a massive floral centerpiece draped in lush white flowers and dripping with crystals. The china, crystal, and sterling silver were brought in from England. Fun fact: just one sterling place setting cost roughly $800. The gilded custom stage for the orchestra-style band would have been suited to a Roaring Twenties New York City ballroom. Ornamental bushes dotted the room, trimmed to resemble the constellations brought to life, from the Hunter to the Big Dipper. However, the crown jewel was the head table, a round mirrored table underneath a huge hanging ring of white orchids, peonies, and crystals---and in front of a solid wall of five thousand white roses and ranunculus. The sight was truly breathtaking.

A god of war is also the god of those who are caught in the wheel of eternal struggle, who fight on despite knowledge of certain defeat, who stand with their companions against spear and catapult and gleaming metal, armed with only their pride, who strive and assay and press and toil, all the while knowing that they cannot win.’ ‘You are not only the god of the strong, but also the god of the weak. Courage is better displayed when it seems all is lost, when despair appears the only rational course.’ ‘True courage is to insist on seeing when all around you is darkness.’ And Fithowéo stood up and ululated. As his voice filled the cave walls and bounced back to his ears, he seemed to see the stalactites hanging overhead like bejeweled curtains, the stalagmites growing out of the ground like bamboo shoots, the bats careening through the air like battle kites, the night-blooming orchids and cave roses blooming like living treasure—the cave was filled with light. The god of war laughed and bowed down to the orchid and kissed her. ‘Thank you for showing me how to see.’ ‘I am but the lowest of the Hundred Flowers,’ said the orchid. ‘But the tapestry of Dara is woven not only from the proud chrysanthemum or the arrogant winter plum, the bamboo who holds up great houses or the coconut who provides sweet nectar and pleasing music. Chicory, dandelion, butter-and-eggs, ten thousand species of orchids, and countless other flowers—we have no claim to the crests of the great noble families, and we are not cultivated in gardens and not gently caressed by the fingers of great ladies and eager courtiers. But we also fight our war against hail and storm, against drought and deprivation, against the sharp blade of the weeding hoe and the poisonous emanations of the herbicide-sprayer. We also have a claim on time, and we deserve a god who understands that every day in the life of the common flower is a day of battle.’ And Fithowéo continued to ululate, letting his throat and ears be his eyes, until he strode out of the cave, emerged into the sunlight, and picked up two pieces of darkest obsidian and placed them in his eye sockets so that he had eyes again. Though they were blind to light, they sowed fear into all who gazed into them.

Phragmipedium kovachii. It is a stunningly beautiful orchid from the Amazon rain forest in northeast Peru, with a blue-purple flower that can have a horizontal spread of up to nine and a half inches.

enhances the orchid’s reproductive success—but not his own! The best known of these cheats is the bee orchid—the flower looks and feels like a female bee and even has the same pheromones.

These are machair orchids,’ he told me. ‘I grow them on my land. They’re native to the western isles, where my mother was born. They’re fragile as soap bubbles, these things. I grow them in a greenhouse.

One of the herbals I brought home from the library had a fascinating chapter on herbs and their connection to desire. For Elizabethans, a bundle of rosemary helped arrange an assignation, and an apple suggested libidinous intent. I picture Adlai's reaction to a sprig of rosemary left on his counter, or a juicy Fuji. Better yet, a "Florida butterfly" orchid from the swamp, since the same herbal had an entire page on the sensual properties of the orchid. It called the flower female----"open and inviting"----the root, male----"tuberous and reaching"----and the entire plant "hot and moist in operation.

A burst of florals hypnotizes me towards the cottage. Sweet peas and moonflowers press through the porch's warped wood panels. I make my way up the whitewashed steps, and a velvet orchid wrapped around the banister tickles my hand. Twinkling sea glass wind chimes wreathed with roses send a shiver down my spine as I grip the tarnished doorknob, hopeful that this place will become familiar soon. After all, it is my home now.

I found something for you.” He ignored the pangs of hunger and lowered himself to one knee before her. Her eyes widened. He swung his hand around from behind his back and held out a lone orchid the same shade as the moon overhead. And once again, he wished he knew what to say, how to talk to her, how to be more sophisticated. Instead, he thrust it before her. She tentatively took it from him and lifted questioning eyes. “For your collection of specimens,” he offered. Her fingers caressed the drooping petals. “I think it’s a yellow lady’s slipper.” He didn’t know nor did he care. He only knew that he wanted one of her rare smiles. For a long intense moment, he held his breath. Finally her lips curved into a smile. “Thank you.” His pulse jolted forward and he swallowed hard. “You’re welcome.” What was happening to him? Why did he want to make her happy? When she lifted the flower to her nose and took a deep breath, her smile moved to her eyes . . . And to his heart.

He noticed that he felt calmer now she was here, still in that grey dress with her dowdy hat, the air around her redolent with orchid oil. Perhaps all women in England had this effect. Perhaps they all smelled of flowers and exuded a calm and measured purpose. He couldn’t remember.

She brought over a freshly brewed cup of black orchid tea and sat across from me. The tea was especially fragrant. From that day on, it was my favorite. The scent reminded me of rainy days and libraries and a jumble of gardens where there were flowers in bloom.

Sam hadn't left New York with Claire, he'd just arrived at the hotel that morning, checked in, put a few things away in his room and went downstairs to the extensive gift shop and saw the beautiful bouquet of island flowers and knew Claire would love them. The orchid in the middle of the arrangement was purple, which he knew was her favorite color.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation. That has always been part of its charm, Laroche loved orchids, but I came to believe he loved the difficulty and fatality of getting them almost as much as the flowers themselves.

Victorian women were forbidden from owning orchids because the shapes of the flowers were considered too sexually suggestive for their shy constitutions, and anyway the expense and danger and independence of collecting in the tropics were beyond any Victorian woman’s ken.

Undoubtedly, I am biased, but among these tales such masterpieces as ‘The Star’, ‘The Crystal Egg’, ‘The Flowering of the Strange Orchid’, and, above all, ‘The Country of the Blind’ blaze like diamonds amid costume jewellery.

Your father has a fondness for orchids." Could she know my father's affinity for orchids is in direct correlation with his affinity for my mother? "Much too finicky for me. I prefer azaleas. When I was a little girl, I used to drink the nectar from the flowers." I brighten a little. "I did that, too." Mom had azalea plants all over our property. She taught me how to pull the blossom from the stem and slurp from the tip of the flower like her mother had shown her. I always thought it was something unique to us, to our family. But maybe it was more. A connection to Japan, an invisible tether. "Is there a variety you prefer? I quite enjoy the omurasaki." I've caught her attention. "It is a lovely bloom," she says.

The ceremony consisted of vibrant pink, purple, and coral details that complemented the rustic wood and lush green vines climbing up the chapel. Abigail's team constructed an arbor made entirely of drooping orchids and palm fronds that framed the wooden doors perfectly. The aisle was lined with thousands of coral-colored rose petals and more orchids spilling over the end of every row of seats. It was a tropical dream.

Blazing bamboo torches lit the way to the tiki hut beside Sarasota Bay at Mote Marine Aquarium. The thatch-roofed pavilion sheltered wooden picnic tables wrapped with raffia skirting and crowned with centerpieces of conch shells filled with sprays of orchids. Potted palms and red hibiscuses had been placed around the perimeter of the outdoor room. The atmosphere was redolent with roasting pork and salt air. "This is ridic!" exclaimed Piper. "We're never leaving." She scooped a watermelon margarita garnished with a paper umbrella from the tray of a passing server. Jack helped himself to a Captain Morgan on the rocks. "To us," he said, raising his glass. Trays of skewered beef teriyaki and sweet-and-sour chicken were passed.

Mariyamma's 'garden' is an example of the fine balance between tradition and modernity. Traditional plants like pichi, mulla, chembakam, the four-o-clock plant, hibiscus and pavizhamalli bob their heads right alongside modern varieties like orchid, gerbera, petunia and chrysanthemum. Roses of both kinds traditional and modern - although with the arrival of newcomers in yellow, orange and magenta, the old roses in red and pink have lost their lustre. Still, they hold their heads high, saying, We too are roses.' Kottarathil Veedu had flowering plants even before Mariyamma's arrival. But pichi, mulla, chembakam and hibiscus did not a 'garden' make - they only made a yard with flowers.

Mankind,’ however, has no aim, no idea, no plan, any more than the family of butterflies or orchids. ‘Mankind’ is a zoological expression, or an empty word. But conjure away the phantom, break the magic circle, and at once there emerges an astonishing wealth of actual forms the Living with all its immense fullness, depth and movement hitherto veiled by a catchword, a dryasdust scheme, and a set of personal ‘ideals.’ I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can only be kept up by shutting one’s eyes to the overwhelming multitude of the facts, the drama of a number of mighty Cultures, each springing with primitive strength from the soil of a mother region to which it remains firmly bound throughout its whole life-cycle, each stamping its material, its mankind, in its own image; each having its own idea, its own passions, its own life, will, and feeling, its own death Here indeed are colours, lights, movements, that no intellectual eye has yet discovered. Here the Cultures, peoples, languages, truths, gods, landscapes bloom and age as the oaks and the stone-pines, the blossoms, twigs and leaves but there is no ageing ‘Mankind.’ Each Culture has its own new possibilities of self-expression which arise, ripen, decay, and never return. There is not one sculpture, one painting, one mathematics, one physics, but many, each in its deepest essence different from the others, each limited in duration and self-contained, just as each species of plant has its peculiar blossom or fruit, its special type of growth and decline. These cultures, sublimated life-essences, grow with the same superb aimlessness as the flowers of the field. They belong, like the plants and the animals, to the living Nature of Goethe, and not to the dead Nature of Newton. I see world-history as a picture of endless formations and transformations, of the marvelous waxing and waning of organic forms. The professional historian, on the contrary, sees it as a sort of tapeworm industriously adding on to itself one epoch after another.

The most valued tulips were those with brilliant streaks and stripes of colors, then thought to be the mark of distinction, and now known by botanists to be the evidence of a devastating flower virus spread by aphids.

Some people had men woo them with jewelry, with roses and orchids and champagne. I had a man who sent me knives and parasitic flowers. I was smiling the rest of the day.

Hesitantly, I follow her up the steps to a metal door. When she opens it, I let out a gasp. A large dome glitters in the sun. Garrance opens up another door, this one glass, and I'm rendered speechless as a plethora of scents and humid air hit me, wrapping me up in Mother Nature's embrace. I'm in the islands. I'm in heaven. And I'm on a roof in Paris. I need a crane to pick up my jaw. "This is my climate-controlled greenhouse, my pride and joy." This slice of Parisian paradise is filled from floor to ceiling with tropical plants like orchids and flowering trees, moths, butterflies, and bees floating from flower to flower---not to mention the exotic birds---cockatoos, parakeets, and a couple of parrots, their plumage in reds, greens, blues, oranges, and whites.

As for the hedgerows, the law required the developers to commission a hedgerow survey; it found that single hedgerows on the site contained up to eight tree species. An approximate rule of thumb known as Hooper's Rule states that the age of an English hedgerow can be estimated by counting the number of woody tree species growing along a thirty-yard stretch and multiplying that number by 110. This suggests that some of the hedges could have been part of the landscape since well before the first mention of an orchid in English. Neither the survey nor the developer's Environmental Impact Statement noted this.

The falling populations of all Britain's wildlife, due in no small part to the disappearance and degradation of native habitats, are evidence that, despite their ties to our cultural heritage, the natural heritage of these lands is being allowed to collapse. In the words of the law, 'the creatures and habitats that belong to all' are being allowed to vanish.

By the way, the zombie was eating a blue orchid, which was roughly the same color as his shirt. So in this picture, it kinda looks like he’s eating his own shirt. He wasn’t, though. Of course, I could have changed the flower to, say, a pink tulip or something. But I’m going for accuracy here.