Several months ago, I wrote Susan Orleans (author of The Orchid Thief, whom Meryl Streep portrayed in the book’s film adaptation Adaptation) a brief note, asking her if she had ever encountered the man who bred the Brassocattleya “Mt. Hood Mary”, a very rare orchid (picture above) that I mentioned in a holiday essay about gift-giving, and that my family is fairly obsessed with. Turns out that she hadn’t, but she did send me a very nice postcard explaining as much.
