I took my pill at eleven. An hour and half later I was sitting in my study, looking intently at a small glass vase. The vase contained only three flowers — a full blown Belle of Portugal rose1, shell pink with a hint at every petal’s base of a hotter, flamier hue; a large magenta and cream-coloured carnation; and, pale purple at the end of its broken stalk, the bold heraldic blossom of an iris.

—Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, Vintage 2004 (1954)

1. Também chamada ‘Belle portugaise’. [↩]