Queen of the Night - second night

Usually at this time of the year we stay up late to watch the Perseid meteor shower. Sadly it's been too cloudy to watch shooting-stars but we've had another heavenly display: our Queen of the Night.

Last night we had one flower and four more buds which we thought might all bloom together tonight. We went out to dinner with our favorite friends to our favorite restaurant tonight and, sure enough when we got home, the four new blooms had popped.

Once again the room was filled with that strange perfume. Yesterday I described the scent as "sweet and musky like vanilla with a whiff of skunk." I take back the "whiff of skunk." It's even more weird and wonderful than that. The perfume made me wonder if the yonis of the Queen of Sheba or Cleopatra smelled as intoxicating. Chas noticed that moths were beating themselves to death on the window panes trying to get into the room. As Andy, our resident orchid specialist, noted: the perfume has to be really intoxicating to the insects which pollinate it because it only lasts for one night. I've still got the scent in my nostrils two hours after I sniffed them.

Here you can see yesterday's flower and three of the unopened buds:



















Here's the dying flower from last night and three of the four new blooms.


















This pic shows that there is a fourth flower on the other side near our second freezer on the back porch:


















A closer look at the three new blossoms and the dead one dangling forlornly in the background:


















An even closer look. Keep in mind that each bloom is a foot in diameter. Check out the huge erect pistil with tentacles and the dozens of pollen-covered stamens.


















Sic transit gloria mundi.