Elegance Blooms At San Francisco Orchid Society Gala

The San Francisco Orchid Society Gala lured about 1,500 enthusiasts from
their gardens and greenhouses to Fort Mason Center for the recent gala opening
of the annual Orchid Exposition.

The San Francisco society is well known in the orchid world for being a group
that grows species of orchids as they are found in the wild “in appreciation of
natural state of orchids and of their endangered status” rather than hybrids,
according to Dennis Westler, who chaired the exposition.

Society members are also the envy of their peers elsewhere because the Bay
Area’s microclimates allow members to grow a broader range of orchids than can
be grown elsewhere. “You see things here grown outdoors that people struggle to
grow in the rest of the country in air-conditioned greenhouses,” said Westler.

Photo Caption: Paul Geffner and Lisa Bennett shop at the Orchid Society
fundraiser during the Pacific Orchid Exposition.

Photo Credit: Photo: David Paul Morris / The Chronicle

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