Rapaccini’s Garden of Delights

You know you’ve been away from home too long when you come home to find strange flowers blossoming on your front doorstep:

I haven’t really decided whether I love or hate this flower, but I better make up my mind soon because the plant producing it is nearly four foot tall and loaded with blossoms.

Judging from its appearance, I’m mildly concerned that it may be an invasive species from another planet, which may explain why Skye keeps running up to the den window and growling half the night (of course, an alternative theory may be simply that the cat next door misses its owners and is constantly meowing in order to get some much-needed attention).

If it is an invasive species, it would seem to hold the potential to reproduce rapidly, judging from its rather bold display, though the large bumblebees that are so attracted to other flowers in the bed seem to purposefully avoid this particular flower. Perhaps it reminds them of Rapaccini’s Daughter, as it does me.