The Princesita de Mediya Noches in my family has a strange and funny story. Whichever country the cactus orchid actually originates from, the aunt of my dad got it in Indonesia or from a business acquaintance in Indonesia. In the forty years the aunt owned it, it had never blossomed. When she moved back to the Philippines, we got the plant, and brought it to Memphis with us. There, it enjoyed a brief summer outdoors when we noticed the plant had begun to bud. We were excited. The flat, green leaves with occasional stalks had something new- these strange, pink-purple buds that looked like a bundle of thick pink hair or thick pasta held in a handful. After one or two of the buds fell, we brought the plant inside. The rest of the buds fell, to our disappointment, but a few weeks later it began to bud again. This time the bud got bigger and bigger until it was as large as a kid’s fist (at its fattest point), the rest of it snaking around – down to gravity and back up again.
The night it bloomed, we were all fascinated and excited. We didn’t miss it, because suddenly the house was so fragrant! And the blossom was so large! We could almost have taken a video of it blooming, for every few minutes it was inches larger. I was taking pictures with my camera as often as I could back then. How the noodle-like covers had slowly parted to reveal the soft, delicate white petals within. How they lifted and the petals slowly began to spread, as though part of a tantalizing dance that only an Ent could have enjoyed for all its subtle movings. And oh! The strange and fascinating things it began to uncover that were previously concealed within the bud - strange, soft yellow filaments thick with fuzzy pollens, and a curious white catching-thing, with strands of its own in every direction, as though only a slight brush of wind was what it needed to grow seed.
And like the careful ballerina, it ran through its night-long dance of blooming, until the flower was as big as my face, and soon after even bigger! And there in the foyer, when I turned, I could see what it was dancing for – a full moon had risen in the deep blue outside, and its full moonlit rays graced the princess in her performance.
The clock had struck midnight. The flower was as big as a dinner plate, but still so delicate in every direction. The ugly, noodlish coverings were hidden behind it now, like a spider puppeteer behind the curtain-skirts of a princess truly worth the name. Soft, long white petals in every direction. A fragrance that couldn’t be escaped. But as time grew on towards sunrise, the flower began to close. For this, I went to bed that night, because I knew the flower wouldn’t bloom any further.
And when the sky was bright, the princess of a flower was hidden again. It had wilted, soft white petals showing here and there through the pink coverings, like a sleepy little girl who falls into bed still in her dress, not caring to kick off her dress shoes while she dozes on cushions as soft as cotton candy.
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When I came to the Philippines, I brought a few leaves of the Princesita with me, and from that I planted them here. This is the climate they were meant for, and they flourished and grew faster than Jack’s magical beans. Four years later, I come home late one evening, just before the rain started, and it was the perfect moment to arrive. The Princesita was blooming again, and so I snapped these pictures. Because of rain and sleep, I was unable to watch it for its entire blooming. But I’m sure the stars and the moon gave it a perfect audience. :)
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