Loose Leaf Notes

They look like aliens or pelicans.

Like iris and pansies and lilies.

Dragonflies and drones.

This one looks like Goofy in a hat

and this one like an angel in a dress.

Exotic but not but not fussy, they come in countless varieties of easy care and long lasting blooms. Once they were rare, found mainly in tropics and jungles, but now can be found in grocery stores and homes everywhere.

All orchids have both the male and female reproductive parts fused into a single structure. The contemporary word for this flower, introduced in 1845, comes from the Greek orchis, which literally translates as “testicle.”

They look like lady slippers and dragonflies, like Dave Matthews fire dancers.

And this one is called Firecracker! Or, ‘what the heck are those lady clowns wearing?’

Wild Thing is one of my favorites.

Every one is different and each stirs the secrets of the psyche like a Rorschach inkblot test.

I call this the ooh la la fashionista.

The secret admirer.

The bleeding hearts of the tropic.

All photos were taken at Orchid Exhibition: Orchids: Amazing Adaptations at the Smithsonian Portrait Museum in Washington D.C. – More of our museum trip HERE.