NADA New York 2022

This imaginative arrangement mixes both the indigenous plants of the US and many international delegates to create a harmonious atmosphere that has an unmistakable oriental flavor.

The centerpiece of the arrangement, the red Japanese maple is a genus of the well-known maple family. Like all maples, it sports the opposite leaves and bears the fruit of two united samaras, or the dry indehiscent double seeded winged fruit.
(Scientific name: Aceracea)

One of the accent plants is the Wandering Jew. The name of this plant is derived from the medieval legend of a Jew condemned by Christ to wander the earth until Christ’s second coming. However, in modern times the plant is recognized as a member of the spiderwort family. Crawling and sprawling by nature, the Wandering Jew was cultivated for its showy and often white striped foliage.
(Scientific name: Z. pendula and T. fluminensis)

Also highlighting the arrangement is the Virginia creeper. Vastly popular, this North American tendril climbing vine and member of the grape family is often idenfitied by its hand-like or palmate leaves, and its bluish black berries.
(Scientific name: Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

Floral color and beauty is added by the azelea. As one of many ornamental subgenera of the rhododendron family, these dainty flowers have decidedly funnel-shaped corollas—which is the shape that petals make while enveloping the reproductive organ of the flower—the sporophylls.
(Scientific name: Azelea)

Finally, Spanish moss coordinates the undergrowth. While a member of the pineapple family, this plant normally forms overhanging tufts of grayish green filaments on the top of trees in the southern United States and the West Indies. Being epiphytic by nature, it derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain, and usually grows on another plant.
(Scientific name: Tillandsia usneoides)

While all the horticulture in Oriental Opulence was selected for its overwhelming beauty and desireable ambience, a wonderful metaphor occurs. All the plants and their various cultures become intertwined resulting in a multifarious nation of co-existence, be it plants or people.

Source: Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1973)