Vanilla Orchid Flower Blooming in Miami
I recently blogged about all of the vanilla orchid flower buds on my vine. They've been opening in the past week, and I admit I missed a lot of the blooms because of the ongoing hospitalization of my mother. Also, I never got around to making the special paintbrush that I would have needed to hand pollinate them. So today I'll just be sharing the tropical beauty of this flower. Vanilla is the only species out of 20,000 orchid species that has a usable "fruit", the vanilla bean. You can click on any image to enlarge it. This flower is half open. I like how the Jasminium officinale leaves are intertwined with the vanilla vine. This is a spent/unpollinated vanilla flower. Isn't is similar in looks, if you look at just one segment, of an aged, glistening vanilla bean?