Slipper Orchids; Cypripedioidea from the Orchid Show, New York Botanical Gardens. These were low lying, in amongst ferns and sphagnum. Slippers are of course powerful reminders of fairy tales and courtly realms. When apparent in this dank and vegetable state they have an enchanting quality. As a result Slipper Orchids always make me think of miniature people, like those in Jack and the Beanstalk or Gulliver’s Travels, clambering their way through gigantic vegetation, and climbing up giant stalks; which would otherwise be small, even miniature, were it not for the fairy tale state. The foliage around these orchids is rich, damp and green. Moss forests, waxy, waving leaves and miniature, curling fern-tendrils allude to a vast miniature world ready to be explored.
© 2010 RJ
