A Vanilla Scented Tulip Orchid

Vanilla was not what I was expecting to smell yesterday when watering the Anguloa bench. If anything, I would have expected some foetid smells from the adjacent Nepenthes, quietly digesting their insect soup. Vanilla just isn't a fragrance I associate with Tulip Orchids. But no mistake, a little searching among the big accordion pleated leaves brought me to this guy, Anguloa cliftonii. At close range the fragrance was the familiar camphor/cineole common to many Euglossine bee fragrances, but with sweet overtones of vanilla. This is only the second time we have flowered cliftonii. Either I wasn't paying attention last time, or I caught it at the wrong time of day. What a treat.