enchantment

I don't eat these. And only Pachamama can prepare them.

The first time I saw them in the wild was on a paseo to a small patch of primary forest hidden on a mountainside and surrounded by cultivated fields. I was awed. Never had I even dreamed of finding something like that! So delicate, so complex, so lovely.
I took one home and kept it alive, by simple accident, since I had no real idea of how to care for it, for several years.

I then found a different one, incredibly, quite hidden in a thicket, right by a roadside. I also gathered that one.

The first lilac, then yellow.

Orchids.
I now know it was quite wrong to gather them in the wild. What I get now I buy, from producers.
That way I don't interfere with nature's selection and propagation.

I try to cultivate my own in pots on my terrace, but the kind that used to grow around here. And I have four in pots in my house. I've bought books on the subject, learned some names, and I've gone to a couple of exhibitions. They never cease to be breathtaking.