Elementary's The Rat Race Accesses Vanilla Latte from Vanilla Orchids

Summary: Vanilla vines allow access to aromatic, flavorful vanilla pods from vanilla orchids for vanilla latte on Elementary's The Rat Race Oct. 25, 2012.

illustration of flat-leaved vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) by early 19th-century English botanist and botanical artist Henry Charles Andrews in his description of Mexico and Central America's native vanilla orchid species; Botanists' Repository (1808), Plate DXXXVIII: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Vanilla latte appears on the Elementary procedural drama television series episode The Rat Race Oct. 25, 2012, as culinary aftermaths of artificial flavor or vanilla pods from vanilla orchids on vanilla vines.

Director Rosemary Rodriguez and writer Craig Sweeney broach vanilla latte (from Italian latte, "[coffee with] milk") as the beverage ambush date Aaron Ward (Luke Kirby) buys. Season One's fourth episode considers the complicated consequences of Emily Hankins (Susan Pourfar) coordinating casual coffee chats with her colleague Aaron and confidante Joan Watson (Lucy Liu). Joan discerns, from Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) divulging deduction and detection techniques, devious, duplicitous declarations by Aaron, who dishonestly describes his dating status as available.

Sherlock extracts Aaron's marital status from online evidence and the elusive identity of a serial executioner of company executives whose life expectancies end earlier than estimated.

Central American, Colombian, Mexican and west Caribbean bats feed upon vanilla vine fruits and function as animal dispersers of vanilla vine pod seeds in wooded wetlands.

Vanilla vines grow from the thousands of black, hard-coated, maximally 0.32-inch- (8-millimeter-) wide near-microscopic seeds in the black, oily pulp inside all vanilla vine fruit pods. Aromatic, cylindrical, downward-bending, fleshy, fragrant, green-yellow, succulent, thick, 5.12- to 9.84-inch- (130- to 250-millimeter-) long pods have the vanilla compound, 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde, and 130 other aromatic compounds. Vanilla vines, identified scientifically as Vanilla planifolia (from Spanish vanilla, "little pod" and Latin plānī, "flat" and folia, "leaf"), initiates flowering and fruiting their third year.

Vanilla vines juggle four to eight skinny pods two months, and mature pods six to nine months, after bee or manual pollination at each inflorescence node.

Commercial cultivation and cultivation outside native ranges of vanilla vines keep up manual pollination methods known in 1841 by Edmont Albius (Aug. 9, 1829-Aug. 9, 1880).

Vanilla vines locate 12 to 20 buds and up to 15-flowered racemes (from Latin racēmus, "cluster") in inflorescence nodes opposite leaf axils (from Latin axilla, "armpit"). Their cream, green, yellow trumpet-shaped flowers maintain maximally 0.28-inch- (7-millimeter-) long bracts and 1.58-inch- (40-millimeter-) long petals and 1.38- to 2.16-inch- (35- to 55-millimeter-) long sepals. Orchid (Euglossia viridissima, Eulaema cingulata, E. polychroma, E. meriana) and stingless (Mellipona beecheii) bees nestle onto each flower's brown-green, yellow-fringed labellum (from Latin labellum, "little basin").

Vanilla vines, observed by Henry Andrews (1794-1830?) and George Jackson (1780?-Jan. 12, 1811), organize lateral outward-spreading petals alongside the labellum, as central lower petal for pollinators.

Vanilla vines possess seven-plus alternate-positioned, elliptical, entire-edged, flat-bladed, fleshy, oblong, oval, succulent, 5.91- to 9.84-inch (150- to 250-millimeter) by 1.97- to 3.15-inch (50- to 80-millimeter) leaves.

Vanilla vines queue up adventitious, aerial, short, white roots alongside each non-inflorescence node's single leaf, longer than distances between nodes, on green. 0.39-inch (1-centimeter) diameter stems. The 50- to 98.42-plus-foot- (15.24- to 30-plus-meter-) long epiphyte (from Greek ἐπί, "atop" and φυτόν, "plant") roots over swampy woodland, wet lowland tree branches and trunks. Cultivated 8- to 10-foot (2.44- to 3.05-meter) by 4- to 6-foot (1.22- to 1.83-meter) vines survive 0- to 2,395.01-foot (0- to 730-meter) altitudes above sea level.

Perhaps Aaron now takes ambush-free vanilla latte by home-tending vanilla vines at respectively daytime and night-time 80 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit (26.66 and 15.55 degrees Celsius).

Canon-Ebersol Chief Investment Officer Jim Fowkes (Craig Bierko) appears at Sherlock Holmes' (Jonny Lee Miller) Brooklyn brownstone to deliver a check and to deny his identification as the eccentric consulting detective's prime suspect in CBS Elementary's The Rat Race (season 1 episode 4): Elementary @CBSElementary, via Facebook Oct. 25, 2012

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

illustration of flat-leaved vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) by early 19th-century English botanist and botanical artist Henry Charles Andrews in his description of Mexico and Central America's native vanilla orchid species; Botanists' Repository (1808), Plate DXXXVIII: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/35393568

Canon-Ebersol Chief Investment Officer Jim Fowkes (Craig Bierko) appears at Sherlock Holmes' (Jonny Lee Miller) Brooklyn brownstone to deliver a check and to deny his identification as the eccentric consulting detective's prime suspect in CBS Elementary's The Rat Race (season 1 episode 4): Elementary @CBSElementary, via Facebook Oct. 25, 2012, @ https://www.facebook.com/ElementaryCBS/photos/a.151627898295663/192230314235421

For further information:

Andrews, H. November 1808. "Plate DXXXVIII. Vanilla Planifolia. Flat-Leaved Vanilla." Botanists' Repository Comprising Colour'd Engravings of New and Rare Plants Only with Botanical Descriptions in Latin and English After the Linnæan System Vol. VIII: 538.
Available @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/35393567

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. 1892. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. London, England: George Newnes Ltd.

Elementary @CBSElementary. 25 October 2012. "Watch last night's Elementary on CBS.com: http://bit.ly/QVc6ap." Facebook.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/ElementaryCBS/photos/a.151627898295663/192230314235421

Marriner, Derdriu. 20 October 2012. "Why Are Lemon Presses for Lemons on Elementary's Child Predator?" Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-are-lemon-presses-for-lemons-on.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 8 October 2012. "Bach Chaconne Absorbs Anguish on Elementary's While You Were Sleeping." Earth and Space News. Monday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/10/bach-chaconne-absorbs-anguish-on.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 29 September 2012. "Are Lesser Clovers Sherlock's Lucky Shamrocks on Elementary's Pilot?" Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/09/are-lesser-clovers-sherlocks-lucky.html

"The Rat Race." Elementary: The First Season. Los Angeles CA: Paramount Pictures Corporation, Oct. 25, 2012.