Note 18 — Chapter V · EL RIO META

The odors of orchids are almost as diverse as their colors and forms. While most of them have an agreeable scent, there are some that have an unbearably fetid odor. Some emit a faint and delicate perfume; others possess a fragrance which, although delicious, is almost overpowering. In some the fragrance is perceptible only in the morning, in others solely in the evening. Some have a scent like that of violets, others like that of musk or noyeau, and others again like that of angelica or cinnamon. More wonderful still, “some species,” we are told, “give out different scents at different times, such as Dendrobium nobile, which smells like grass in the evening, like honey at noon, and has in the morning a faint odor of primroses.”18