Pentecôte

When I was out walking the dog one afternoon last week, I saw our grapegrower-winemaker neighbor J-N Guerrier out working on his vines. He was at the other end of a long row of vines and was with another person that I didn't recognize from that distance.

Des pentecôtes — wild orchids — in a field near Saint-Aignan
sur-Cher. You can see our house off in the distance.

Callie and I turned off the gravel road and walked up the row towards J-N and the mystery person. It turned out to be an older lady who looked familiar but whom I hadn't met before. She was J-N's mother-in-law, it turned out. I could see a clear resemblance between her and her daughter C., J-N's wife.

These flowers are protected in certain parts of France,
but are plentiful here in Touraine.

I pointed out some pretty purple flowers growing in a field just at the edge of J-N's plot of vines, saying that I thought they were wild orchids. “Are they?” J-N's mother-in-law asked. “We've always called them « des pentecôtes »” — that would be Pentecost flowers in English. J-N's mother-in-law is probably in her 70s.

I don't know whether the word Pentecôte used as the name of a flower would be capitalized, or whether it would take a final S in the plural. Who knows?

A close-up, with Callie up ahead

In Christian tradition, La Pentecôte is a religious holiday that falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter Sunday. I assume that's approximately when these little orchids make their annual appearance in the fields all around Touraine, including these around the vineyards near Saint-Aignan.

I found the flowers listed by the name Pentecôte on the Belles Fleurs de France web site and also here and here.