Orchid portrait

Spring has literally blown in. Today crews are cutting up smashed limbs and whole crashed trees all over the South Coast after a storm that howled all Saturday night.

The tiny terrestrial orchids with their slender stems are unperturbed by huffs and puffs, however strong. This withered Glossodia major — commonly known as the Wax Orchid, yet uncommonly seen — has seen its celebrated days, now that its brilliant yellow pollen package has been carried away and its petals have lost their plump extrovert expansiveness. Yet now when dew is a mockery, the harmony of hoariness is at its greatest height so this is when this orchid's attraction, like that of so many other flowers, is most fetching to me.

These aren't flowers for picking, though I did cut this one. It smelled like a Czech chocolate bonbon with a marasca cherry filling, and tasted of clove with a hit of camphor.