The Orchid Show at The New York Botanical Garden has opened and will run until April 6th.

If you like colorful flowers, it's a good show. But if you're really into orchids, it's not so exciting. The ones in the show are pretty, but that's about it. They don't evoke the seductive nature of these flowers. Out in the wild, the wood orchid quivers for motion-sensitive nocturnal creatures. The devious dragon orchid of Australia mimics the shape and scent of a female thynnid wasp so that the male wasp, attempting to mate, pollinates it. The orchids at the NYBG show are pretty standard Cattleyas and Phalaenopsis. There's not much cross-species hanky panky going on here. To get to the main installation, you walk through a series of arches adorned with orchids that look like huppas at Jewish weddings. Also, not so evocative.

By contrast, in the past the Orchid Show held at the Rockefeller Center showcased work by orchid breeders, an obsessed crowd who cultivate the strange, the smelly and the unique. I loved my first glimpse of the Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis, a large plant with huge leaves drooping to the floor. Its blooms are hairy, have a muddy red color, and curve like claws. They also smell like hot, dirty garbage. Imagine all the pollinators they have out in the wild.

Unfortunately, the Rockefeller Center show won't be taking place this year. Out at the NYBG, you can always veer off from the orchid show and wander through the marvelous moss room and stop and check out the man-eating plants.