Cattleya General Patton

And you thought an orchid couldn't be hardcore. Although nothing is less similar to General Patton than an orchid, the badass motherfucker has one named after him. The Cattleya General Patton. So how did a flower, of all things, come to be named after the hardest damn general to ever stamp down the pike?

The hybrid was registered originally as the Cattleya Joseph Stalin by Clint McDade, founder of Rivermont Orchids in Signal Mountain, Tennesee. During WWII, however, the atrocities Stalin had commited against his people were gradually revealed and communism was becoming the new Big Bad in America. Naming an orchid after a communist dictator was, shall we say, suddenly not such a good idea. McDade humbly submitted a request to the Royal Horticultural Society for permission to change his hybrid's registration name. The RHS consented and allowed McDade to rename his orchid. McDade, like a good American, redubbed it the Cattleya General Patton and everyone ate apple pie and lived happily ever after.

Included below is a link to a picture of the orchid.