Selena Sabine with a Taste of Belize

Selena Sabine remembers the evening in scary fragments. Towering men. The smell of booze, stale pizza, and gasoline. A bet. A dare. Cruel machismo. One yanked her tail. Another pulled at her tiny head. A third revved up the truck. A crowd of six or seven men, representing a mentality and a slice of inhumanity no one likes to think about, prepared to crush a tiny black kitten just for kicks. From a distance, an extremely cute girl surmised what was going to happen and rushed in front of the pizza place and confronted the men. Her adorable cheeks scrunched up with rage as she let loose with screams of outrage and threats of immanent police involvement. As the men backed off, the then-nameless kitten looked up at her angel and tried to meow. She took her to her car and thought “Okay, I guess I have another cat.”

Over a decade later, Sabine is safe in the orchid room, looking at a Cattleya bowringiana that’s about 2-3 years from flowering, purchased from Clackamas Orchids. This species is native to Belize, and is named after a 19th century English orchid enthusiast and political economist (Sir John Bowring). Chadwick and Son Orchids explains that “everyone had a plant or two 50 years ago,” so the species went out of style. They promise that C. bowringana “is probably the easiest of all the Cattleya species to grow,” so Sabine and I are hoping we won’t kill this one.