It's not me

[smokingboot]

What I am about to say is not the concoction of a fevered imagination. It is the result of a rather lovely day at RHS Wisley, where the gardens are enchanting but there's no getting past one deep philosophical truth about God. If such a being exists, S/He is utterly obsessed with sex and we may never be closer to the divine than when we are trying to get it on. Never mind beasts rutting across the earth and seas churning with white salt foam, forget gentle hints like oysters, carrots and roses; orchids thrust it in your face.

I believe the name derives from the greek for testicles, and the more you look at them, the more you see why. Some are great pendulous scrotal sacs, some are anal/perineum views, buttoned, shining moist at the centre...and it's as though they encourage all the other flowers to show themselves up just as disgracefully. Petals folding into yawning frilled labias, tropical seeds that open like long fissured vaginas, spikes of clitoral determination swelling out of them... apart from the cacti providing a demonstration of how veggie penises come ready condomed, there were hundreds of examples to prove Uncle Monty right in his assertion that flowers are tarts. Russ Meyer would have lost his mind in this place.

It was almost a relief to find an eidelweiss. Before I got to Wisley, I was expecting a very simple white star flower like maybe a jasmine; then we saw the orchids after which I feared to meet yet another gaping maw of vegetable lust. But no. Eidelweiss looks like its mum knitted it a woolly jumper that's been in the wash a couple of times. The flower looks as though it's made of felt, homely and reassuring and not about to bare its arse at you.

Of course, one can't answer for its behaviour when you're not looking...

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