Tiger Orchids - All that glitters is not gold

When I was in primary school we had this grammar book called First Aid in English and I remember that it contained amongst many things that kids nowadays do not have to learn by heart, a few pages of proverbs that we had to commit to memory for the teacher. The book never glittered in its entire life and yet it passed on to us valuable knowledge in a way that was probably deemed archaic in terms of pedagogy. I kept the book for as long as I could but gave it up some years back because it looked like it would become a heap of dust if I were to cling on to it for another few years.

At the Singapore Orchid Garden shop I saw this huge spray of RISIS Tiger Orchids in gold. It would no doubt glitter for years to come. It will never fade and die like the real Tiger Orchids but it will also not have much of a life inside a glass container unlike its siblings in the garden.

Tiger Orchids - Grammatophyllum speciosum

I am so privileged to have seen these Tiger Orchid blooms a second time because they only bloom once a year. The first time I saw them was some years ago (or perhaps many years ago), and the second time was on Sunday. They were in the same location and most likely were the same plants.

It was like meeting an old friend, one I have not seen for years and who suddenly turned up out of the blue like my friend Margaret.

Of course I had to spend quality time with these lovely flowers. As I have mentioned before, I am not very enamoured of orchids for reasons that I do not really know myself even though I do take photos of them but only because they were flowers.

But these gigantic orchids are the only orchids that I set apart from the rest because of their sheer power to dazzle even in broad daylight.

So I circled this clump of the orchids that could hold the world record as the heaviest orchid, not once but many times and gave them the star treatment they rightly deserve.

I find it strange that no one stopped to join me in admiring these unusually huge orchid flowers. Could it be one woman's meat is another's poison? Maybe, maybe not.

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