Flower porn: Nanchital orchid

In the early 1980s, I was travelling in southern Mexico, when I stayed the night in the town of Nanchital, next to a jungle forest that had heavy earth-moving machinery parked across the street, preparing to level this stretch of forest to widen the highway.

After some phone calls home, no easy feat from there back then, and permits confirmed on this end and instructions received on my end, I went out into the jungle on one of it's last afternoons before its forcible patriation into the 21st century. I climbed a tree and cut down three orchids to bring home.

While I was probably 20 feet off the ground, an enormous thunderstorm hit and laid on me for maybe half an hour. I just held on with both arms until it passed. It was so hot, the rain was a relief. When it passed, I dropped my plants to the ground and then eased myself thereto. At the place I was staying, I filled up a tub with water, per instructions from my mom, whose import permit we would be using, and put the plants under the water, so all the little insects inside them would want to come outside to breathe. I dumped the bugs outside, sprayed my little orchid darlings with insecticide to capture any strays, and brought the orchids home as carry-on.

One never bloomed. One had a single lovely blue blossom once. This one blooms from time to time. I've never had it identified.

I should really Photoshop out that scrub brush.