pseudemys floridana. did you fellas know you fellas believe the world rests on the back of a turtle? not you fellas specifically. although, maybe you fellas specifically. that i can't speak to.
yes, sir, you absolutely may.
oh, okay then! let's see.  five kinds of bromeliad, one peperomia, nine orchid varieties. about a hundred and thirty plants all told, which my colleagues have removed from the swamp.
and don't forget these plants are all endangered, sir. every one of them.
yes, sir, it is. oh, and my colleagues are all seminole indians. did i mention that? you're familiar, i'm sure, with the state of florida v. james e. billie. tony nods, even though he has no idea.
not to mention the failed attempts on three separate occasions to prosecute seminoles for poaching palm fronds, which, i believe, they use to thatch the roofs of their traditional chickee huts.
 and what we have here, my friend, is .  thirteen encyclia cochleata.  four encyclia tampensis --
coch-le-ata. tem-pen-sis. okay, let's see, twenty-two epidendrum nocturnum. a very good haul. two catopsi floribunda. three polyrrhiza lindenii, the ghost orchid. what i really came for. these sweeties grow nowhere in the u.s. except in your swamp.
yeah. i do. i'm one of the world's foremost experts. but that'll all be revealed at the hearing.
okay, i've been a professional horticulturist for twelve years. i've owned a plant nursery of my own which was destroyed by the hurricane. i'm a professional plant lecturer. i've given at least sixty lectures on the cultivation of plants. i'm a published author, both in magazine and book form. i have extensive experience with orchids, and the asexual micropropagation of orchids under aseptic cultures. this is laboratory work, not at all like your nursery work. i'm probably the smartest person i know.
you're very welcome.
they're gonna fucking crucify me.
i'm familiar with the new yorker. the new yorker, yes, the new yorker. right?
yeah? put this in: i don't care what goes on here. i'm right, and i'll take this all the way to the supreme court. that judge can screw herself.
i want you to know this van is a piece of shit. when i hit the jackpot, i'll buy myself an awesome car, maybe an aurora.
the thing you gotta know is my whole life is looking for a goddamn profitable plant. and that's the ghost.
the sucker's rare. collectors covet what is not available. i'm the only one in the world who knows how to cultivate it.
oh, i lost interest right after that.
i dropped turtles when i fell in love with ice age fossils. learned everything about them. collected the shit out of 'em. fossils were the only thing made any sense to me in this fucking world. y'know?
then fossils were over when i found lapidary, which i just adored.
ditched lapidary for resilvering old mirrors. did that with my mom for a while. we had the largest collection of 19th century dutch mirrors on the planet. perhaps you read about us. mirror world october '88? i have a copy somewhere.
i'll tell you a story. i once fell deeply, profoundly in love with tropical fish. i had sixty goddamn fish tanks in my house. i'd skin-dive to find just the right ones. anisotremus virginicus, holacanthus ciliaris, chaetodon capistratus. you name it. then one day i say, fuck fish. i renounce fish.
done with fish.
once you get the sickness, it takes over your life. i started out just photographing 'em. now look at me. it'll happen to you. you'll see.
angraecum sesquipedale! beauty! god! darwin wrote about this one. charles darwin? evolution guy? hello?
see that nectary all the way down there? darwin hypothesized a moth with a nose twelve inches long to pollinate it. everyone thought he was a loon. then, sure enough, they found this moth with a twelve inch proboscis -- proboscis means nose, by the way -- and --
every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. there's an orchid that looks exactly like this particular insect. so the bug humps the flower and gets covered with its pollen. thusly.
that's called pseudo-copulation. these flowers are smart! you gotta fall in love with them. once you learn anything about orchids, you'll devote your life to learning everything about them.
asclepiadaceae. from thirty yards. yes.
 i broke my back. exactly how my dad did. isn't that a psycho coincidence? y'know, the way i see it, we're a family of ailments and pain. but, anyway, it was a godsend.
i consider the broken back -- in three places, by the way. i have x-rays -- -- a stroke of goddamn luck. i got disability, married the sweetest woman in the world. and me and my lovely new wife -- my now ex-wife, the bitch -- got to open our nursery.
people started coming out of the woodwork, to ask me stuff, to admire my plants, to admire me.
catasetum tenebrosum. from peru. it's neat 'cause its dimorphic, which means.
henry! look at that dracula vampira! it's gorgeous, man.
cool.
bromeliad tree. hey, dora! good, good. well, sure, you gotta watch the temperature. don't want an odontoglossum above seventy-five. uh-huh, that should be fine. yeah, damp it down. oh, i'm doing well. she's fine, too. sure.
i believe some folks'd call me up to talk and just talk because they were lonely.
the nursery was going well, but sometimes bad things happen. darkness descends.
sure you don't want to come, dad?
everything's good, uncle jim. this last year's been a dream, i'm telling you. we're finally pulling out of this debt.
she divorced me soon after she regained consciousness. then the hurricane destroyed my greenhouse. everything. i knew it would break my heart to start another nursery, so when the seminoles wanted a white guy, an expert, to get their nursery going, i took it.
but i wasn't gonna give them a conventional little potted-plant place. so i came up with the "ghost" plan. i was gonna give them something amazing.
yeah.
susie-q!
i'd love to, but, hey, i'm banned for the next six months. goddamn crucified me. get one of them monkey-suited rangers to take you. 'course, they wouldn't be able to locate a ghost, if it climbed off a tree and shoved itself up their ass. hey, put that in the article.
jesus christ, of course there are ghost orchids out there! i've stolen them!
no shit i'm a fun character. who's gonna play me?
i think i should play me.
i've got all the right qualities. while you write, i'll take an acting class.
i wear this just to screw with 'em.
most of them don't even bother calling me john anymore. it's "crazy white man" now.
i was trying to order some pink string beans from argentina.
i figure just because project ghost orchid is dead, we're not closing shop.
we'll get into plant multiplication. buy little ones, turn 'em into big ones, sell 'em at a profit. simple plant multiplication for the masses.
i don't need a vacation, buster.
y'know, the guys on my crew here, all they do is smoke weed all day. i been meaning to talk to you about that. so if it's a question of productivity --
they're gonna fire me. goddamn politics. crazy white man's bad publicity. i can't believe i'm dealing with this! like i could give a damn. if they fire me, i'll sue. i already did some legal research on this when i was doing the other shit. they can't fire me. and i ain't going to quit.
yeah?
what about?
i'm no longer interested in orchids. i'm pursuing other avenues. i apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you.
thank you for your time.
yeah what?
yeah hi.
great! i'm training myself on the internet. it's fascinating. i'm doing pornography. it's amazing how much these suckers will pay for photographs of chicks. and it doesn't matter if they're fat or ugly or what.
it's great is what it is.
sorry. i am officially no longer interested in orchids or the losers who are still interested in them. the end.
yeah.
i know.
i'm not interested.
i'm not involved in that world now.
yeah, yeah. i'll take you in.
tomorrow. pick me up at 5:30 am or it'll get too hot. i'll buy all the supplies we'll need.
got everything i need right here.
i remember one time when i was a kid, fifteen or so, my mother and i came to the fakahatchee to look for a ghost to photograph. we walked for hours, through the most intense heat i'd ever felt. we couldn't find one. i wanted to turn back. but my mom said, no.
here we go. encyclia tempensis.
clamshell orchid. you know that.
see, i found you two already. i'll show you every orchid you want today. i'll find you a fucking ghost if it kills me. rigid epidendrum. that's an ugly-ass orchid. but i'm no snob. i'm interested in all orchids. not just pretty ones.
they're right nearby. just follow me.
we're not lost.
we're not lost.
well, y'know it's not really about collecting the thing, it's about --
it is so working.
okay, fuck the sundial. we'll just go straight and eventually we'll get there.
i've done this a million times. whenever everything's killing me, i just say to myself, screw it, and go straight ahead.
darlin', i dunno what's come over you!
who the hell are you?
who the fuck are you?
i got your johnson family right here.
who the hell sent you? rudy?
what the fuck does that mean?
jesus fucking christ. why the fuck were you in my backyard?
this is the fellow adapting your book for the movies, darling'.
he knows about the greenhouse. we can't have this appear on the silver screen.
he needs to be gotten rid of.
small article in newspaper.
focus, darling'. is this credible?
good. i like that.
the jewel of the fakahatchee.
you'll get it.
this spot looks good. now how do we do this? hit him in the head with a rock first? keeping in mind we can only hit him once and only with as much force as would be created by him slipping and falling onto the rock.
should we drown him, then hit him on the head? uh-uh. a body bleeds different if the heart's stopped. these new forensic guys are very smart. we really have to know our corpses to stand a chance: rigor mortis, lividity, putrefecation, ocular changes.
don't get all huffy, i was simply --
not now. we got to kill that guy. and now i guess that other guy as well.
asclepias lanceolata. red milkweed. extremely fuckable. but we don't have time.
what's his name?
charlie! listen, let's talk! this pie is big enough for four people! why are there two of him?
cladium jamaicense, guys. sawgrass. you want to watch out for that. that's some evil shit. cut you up.
just tryin' to be helpful. walk with us and i'll be sure you avoid all the pitfalls. i know these swamps forwards and backwards. there's alligators and poisonous snakes, fellas. wild hogs.
darlin', please.
you're right, i don't want to be here. i'm tired, let's get this over with.
stand back, sweetness.
susie!
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