That Crazy Psychopsis

Speaking of growth, rebirth and change, the Psychopsis mendenhall "Hildos" orchid that started blooming on my bedroom windowsill in June is STILL blooming, throwing flower after flower off its meter-high spike. I LOVE THIS PLANT. SOOOO MUCH.

It's as if all it wants to do is delight me.

I was dying to see how it opened, so I took a series of photos of Blossoms #3 and 4 as they went from closed bud to crane head to flamenco-dancing lobster dude.

At this point the bud looks like the skull of a crazy bird, maybe an ibis or flamingo.

It doesn't take more than overnight for it to go to this folded miracle:
You can see the next bud cued up. How considerate of the orchid, to have another bud forming in the wings when this flower finally withers and falls with a plop in the middle of the night.Ta-DAA! I am OUT!And I am the kabuki lobster dude, mixing genres, phyla and metaphors, doing my manly flamenco for your viewing pleasure for the next week and a half.

Psychopsis mendenhall is native to Trinidad, where its brilliant blossoms dance singly on long stems in the forest gloom. Imagine such a thing, encountered in the wild.

And now, given sun, rainwater and orchid food, it opens five-inch wide blossoms on my windowsill. Life is good.