Good evening from this very white New York City. I wrote a review of February Sunsets last night pointing how mild that usually harsh month has been and now we are in a March Nor'easter.
Welcome to Got a Happy Story? This is a community series that is devoted to the companionship of sharing the the good things in life. It is really just a community open thread where you can share something that will put a smile on a sad face or you can offer anything.
For me tonight's Happy Story is a second annual event. After walking through the snow to see the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory transformed into the Singapore Gardens I wrote Got a Happy Story? The Orchid Show Edition. This year I walked there on a perfect 55° day to see Brazilian Modern.
Join me below for more photos and an amateur review of my South American quickie.
At first I was put off by this year's presentation. The Palm Court that is usually a soft and inviting presentation of flowers in the pool offered a tile wall. I said to my companion "They should try that pattern out on the subway platforms."
But directly behind us was a sea of paradise.
And we did not have to look far for a little taste of Brazil. Are those dancing ladies forming as "S" as in Samba?
There was even some live Brazilian music.
And since almost everyone looks up in the Palm Court, there is plenty of dancing going on overhead.
Now if you've never been to the New York Botanical Gardens to see an exhibit at the glass house that is a national landmark I should explain a few of the differences that make it so interesting. In the case of the orchid show there will be no grand prize winner, there is no focus on master orchid growers or any individual plant. The focus in this living museum is education.
Well perhaps there are a few stars because ever year it seems the long walk to the actual orchid show begins surrounded by amazing Phalaenopsis.
Just like an art show in a museum the public is steered through galleries, these galleries being large connecting tubes or squares of Victorian glass and each house has a theme. You take this educational roundabout to the main exhibition in both the Chrysanthemum Celebration and the Holiday Train Show too.
Getting to the main event is less showy but very interesting. The first tubes and squares of glass are galleries that do not change. The first tube is a forest of bromeliads and since those are epithetic plants that gallery is decorated with orchids that are also air plants. Here are two photos from the first gallery of an orchid that was new to me called xZygonisa Cynosure 'Blue Birds' and one of an old favorite that I think is called "Swiss Beauty."
The next room is a tropical rain forest in the Bronx focused on the forest floor where you can find many and learn about some of the terrestrial orchids. The three below are called Reed Orchids because of their reed like stems. In the Americas there are over 800 species of these orchids.
In the following gallery, where I took one of my favorite photos ever, the most inviting of the permanent galleries that must be a presentation of where really rich Victorians would go in their Orangeries to relax, there is a presentation of the really interesting orchids. They weren't quite finished with the display and a gardener laid a potted butterfly orchid at the edge of the pool.
As politik pointed out this orchid this orchid has DailyKos colors. So we have a mascot at the Orchid Show.
Moving right along, the next room is totally tropical where one of the two permanent orchid cases can be found. Winding around to commercial plants of the tropics you will find the vanilla orchid and if you a lucky, the Darwin Star Orchid might be hiding behind a coffee or chocolate tree.
Did you ever read the story of the Darwin Star Orchid? They laughed at Darwin but forty years later a new discovery proved him right.
Noticing that the star orchid came equipped with an 11-inch long nectar spur extending from each blossom, Darwin predicted that only one animal—with an especially long tongue—could pollinate it. But the animal remained a mythical creature until 40 years later, when scientists discovered a moth with a furled tongue that was the longest in proportion to its body size of any animal. In honor of Darwin’s hypothesis, the moth was named Xanthophan morgani praedicta, Latin for "predicted moth."
The moth and the flower are a perfect fit: The moth gets hard-to-reach nectar and, in doing so, pollinates the orchid, ensuring cross-fertilization. "They’ve adapted a perfect design," says Marc Hachadourian, a curator who focuses on orchids at the garden (although no plant is safe from his meddling, he says). (To see a video of the moth and star orchid in action, click here.)
Like the star orchid, most other species of orchids are adapted to only one pollinator. Their fragrances and flowers are masters of deception, says Hachadourian. Some blooms look like the female parts of the pollinator, so the males of the species fertilize the flowers by accident; others trap flies in their blooms so the insects have to wriggle out, bumping against and inadvertently collecting the pollen; and some, like the star orchid, have nectar spurs the perfect length for a beak or a tongue.
By the way Marc Hachadourian is the man that oversees these Orchid shows. in this photo from last year he is demonstrating the sent of the Bulbophyllum echinolabium. This large beautiful flower emits the smell of rotting flesh to attract pollinators.
There are still deserts to cross before going to the show. First an underground that transformed the "C" shaped conservatory into an "O" shape. Then the New World Desert followed by the Old World Desert. How come cactus of the new world and the euphorbia of the old world look so much alike?
Finally at the staging ground for the orchid show you enter the temperate house and see many of the orchids that are grown at home mixed in with the jasmine, bougainvillea and oranges.
Here's an interesting orchid. There are over 400,000 varieties of orchid and around 8000 of them are represented at each orchid show. This one that doesn't look much like an orchid to me is called the Nun's Cap. Can you see a nun's cap? It sure is different from the one Sally Fields wore.
Then there is the part that get reviewed in the New York Times, the main event. I walked into the main room and the huge crowd seemed very pleased.
With the four big paintings at each corner of the pool I thought they were trying to tell me that Stuart Davis was reincarnated in Brazil.
These "cubist structures" seemed a bit hard for orchid displays.
There are walls of orchids and I could have sworn the final wall spelled the word "So."
But a little interaction with the modern and the show started to grow on me. I guess orchids look good any where and it looks good seeing them in a different light.
My favorites this year are four huge baskets of orchids hanging over the pool.
And there are all sorts of wild corners to get lost in.
Well that was my trip to the Orchid Show but you can't have an orchid diary without a corsage, so here.
And this orchid that I didn't not write down the name of is my favorite for this year. What colors!
Maybe these are my favorites this year.
Or was it this one? I can't make up my mind.
I remember that last year my favorite was Vanda.
I hope you enjoyed my trip to the orchid show. Do you have a happy story?