What is it? The Bird of Paradise - I grew up around this flower. Plenty of them here in Southern California; you find them clumped outside hotels, scattered along streets, packed in ground-level planters. The plant can grow to be huge with long, tough leaves the edges of which can pinch you. When my paternal grandmother died, she was buried in a Jewish cemetary, in a private plot which allowed small gardens. Her choice had been to have Birds of Paradise. I was a teen at the time and remember not "getting it." Boring flower...too big, too plastic, not very feminine. Where are the delicate petals? Where were the tender folds of pink that tear so easily, that almost ask to be torn?

I'm almost 40 and when I look at the Bird of Paradise today, I think it's the most feminine flower - it is bold, it is strong, it lasts, it's persistent. The Bird of Paradise is a survivor beneath a hot sun - it will bloom even if there is little water.

The collection I have outside my window greets me loudly and I turn to see my daughter...as she goes head to head with her brothers. Yes, this flower is the most feminine one I know.