U.S. Botanic Garden

I apologize.  When I realized there would come a time when I wouldn't be able to update regularly (or even at all), I knew I would have to build up a backlog of posts to automatically reveal themselves in my absence. This naturally means that the post you see usually has nothing to do with the most recent weekend (with occasional exceptions to this rule).  It also means that I usually sit down and write three or four posts at a time, for both this blog and the one with the food, schedule them, and then forget about the blog entirely for weeks at a time.

Then things like this happen, and the backlog I think I have is not as great as the one which actually exists, and if such a thing as an "avid reader" of Lost and Fond is out there, they find themselves disappointed when new material is not available to them by 2 AM Eastern Time.

Whoops.

As an apology, I offer these pictures from when I walked to the U.S. Botanical Garden conservatory in D.C., with as little commentary as possible.  I probably won't even offer many captions, because I don't remember what most of these plants are.

There is an entire room of cacti.  It's usually my favorite room of any botanical garden.  I think I just like that there are plants so craftily adapted to live in conditions where plants have no business living.  They are tenacious, and I respect that.

Capsaicin pepper.  Used in pepper spray, among other things.

I think this is a Hunter's Orchid.  There's also a room full of orchids,  which are startling in both their variety and similarity to one another.