Winter Light / Summer Heat #299 The Rangoon Creeper

Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory in Milwaukee is home to three 85 foot tall domes. Each dome contains its own climate and between the three boast 1,800 species of plants. In the winter they hold light shows, but I didn't go there in the winter. There is a lot to look at in the domes. My favorite, the Tropical Dome, features nearly 1,000 species of plants, including banana, coffee and the most memorable for me- Combretum indicum, or the Rangoon Creeper. What a spectacular name. Tonight's show captures the flora and fauna of the exotic coasts and islands of the globe. This is exotica and some islandy vocal jazz.

Martin Denny, whose 1957 album Exotica is the genesis of the term, described the style of the genre as "a combination of the South Pacific and the Orient...what a lot of people imagined the islands to be like...it's pure fantasy though."