The moon poppy (Daboecia lunaris)

The montane bogs of Sel were the only place on the planet where this flower and its pollinator, the "plague doctor" moth (so named for its bulging eyes and shaggy gray proboscis), existed. And here I must apologize, for "moon poppy" is a very rudimentary translation. In the original Selenite, the name meant something more along the lines of "flower whose essential character is activated by the moon." And in fact, the moon poppy was not a true poppy, but rather a kind of heather, with delicate, bell-shaped flowers that seemed to vibrate in the moonlight.

The raw pollen from the moon poppy was fatal to all fauna except for the plague doctor moth. But after being shipped to Tux and undergoing a process whereby the grains of pollen were plucked from the nectar, the nectar could be distilled to produce an essential oil used as the dominant middle note in Silhouette, a luxury fragrance produced in Tux by Maison d'Être.

Moon poppy nectar could only be harvested twice a year, during spring and fall, and only during a full moon. To harvest the nectar, technicians in positive pressure suits mimicked the behavior of the pollinator, stimulating the petal and stamens of the flower with three soft metal filaments until, like a sigh, the anthers exhaled a burst of pollen encased in beads of nectar. The precious nectar was collected in glass flasks for transport to Tux. Technicians needed to be careful to seal the flasks as soon as the nectar was exhaled by the flower. If a fly so much as sneezed into the flask, all of the nectar would be rendered completely unusable.