time for little stars

Brassavola Little Stars (Brassavola nodosa x B. cucullata) has started blooming. It's not the best year for it, since I divided the plants last year, but the flowers are highly anticipated and cherished nevertheless. I waxed on about the plant and the incredible nighttime fragrance (its parent B. nodosa is called "Lady of the Night orchid" after all), in a previous blog entry. Sniffing the flowers this year, I understand my friend who doesn't really like the fragrance. It is not necessarily a pleasant fragrance. There are tones of acetone to the fragrance that are a bit odd. It is not a sweet floral fragrance that you would expect if all you had experienced previous to this were "orchid" scented candles or room scents. Those synthetic fragrances don't smell much like orchids to me. There is certainly a spiciness to the flowers' scent, as I mentioned in the previous blog, of cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, lilies and star jasmine. There is also a distinct hydrocarbon aspect. I expect that the moths and other night-flying insects of the tropics find this scent irresistible. I wonder what my love of the flowers says about me.