Month: February 2026

Or: Won’t you please come to Chicago for a show?

(Image of an Angraecum sesquipedale, here called the “Darwin Orchid” because Charles Darwin predicted that there was a moth that had evolved to pollinate this specific orchid)

So it’s February and time for the 12th Annual Chicago Botanical Garden Show, this year with a nostalgic theme.

I’ve been lucky to attend several of the Chicagoland orchid shows and it was always a great treat, both seeing the exhibits and plants that I might otherwise never encounter and getting to visit a number of of the local grower’s greenhouses (and buy some new plants!).

However, more vividly I remember one particular show in Lansing, Michigan, which we were bringing home the bigger displays and entries — I had a van at the time —from the Ann Arbor Orchid Society.

That year, someone had entered a VERY large (close to two meters tall) Oncidium “Sharry Baby”, a plant noted for the fact that is a fragrant-blooming and smells like chocolate:

… now imagine said plant is in full bloom, with hundreds of flowers pumping out the aroma of fresh hot chocolate! And go a step further and imagine driving for several hours, in a colder-than-usual late Winter Sunday evening, with the windows rolled up against the cold and snow.

We got about halfway back before the smell become overpowering, we had to stop and open the van to air things out a little but not so long as to affect the rest of the plants. Back in the van and the Orchid Express was under way!