I guess for the lighting I was trying to achieve the look of staring at the orchid along with the outside light even though it hurts your eyes...and everything inside gets dark.

Your right pure_morning about the leaves...I'll tone down the specularity. As for achieving the light going through the leaves look..I"m not sure how to do it with the Maya default renderer since I have some "furry" things in my scene and Mental Ray doesn't do fur.