The best time for impregnation is from 8’ o’clock in the morning to 1 or 2 in the afternoon and as far as possible the day after rain.

La Vanille, Delteil, Paris 1884

The Vanilla orchid opens in the pale light. Five celadon petals stand out around the centre of the blossom as it spreads beneath the earliest rays of the sun. Small and cream-smooth, they encircle a graceful yellow flute, the lip of the flower, which hangs outwards above the fleshy green stem of its climbing vine. Inside is the heart of the flower, filled with the makings of its own seed. There, pollen balls sticky and heavy with desire, hang above the rostellum, a thick tongue-flap of tissue separating the mass from the moist female organs below. In the wild, a bee might creep across the interior of the flower, dragging its wings and legs between the tissues and melding the ingredients of its sex. Tiny pollen grains will cling to the bee and fly with it to another flute, mixing the plant’s own character with that of another. But, left inviolate and unvisited, the gentle flower will bloom for five or six hours, and then wither in the tropical sun. By mid-afternoon it will be a shrivelled sack fallen to the ground.

A man’s hand grasps the blossom firmly but gently, taking care not to dislodge its rich seed load. One sunbrowned finger carefully pushes the lip down and away from the pollen mass while his other hand inserts a small stick no longer than a toothpick under the rostellum, gently lifting it out of the way. With his left thumb he presses the head of the flower downwards, smearing the pollen onto the waiting stigma which sits under the flap like an aspirin under a tongue. The stick withdraws smoothly and the pale flower is fertilised. Now it will brood.