Orchid
A Cultural History
At once delicate, exotic, and elegant, orchids are beloved for their singular, instantly recognizable beauty. Found in nearly every climate, the many species of orchid have carried symbolic weight in countless cultures over time. The ancient Greeks associated them with fertility and thought that parents who ingested orchid root tubers could control the sex of their child. During the Victorian era, orchids became deeply associated with romance and seduction. And in twentieth-century hard-boiled detective stories, they transformed into symbols of decadence, secrecy, and cunning. What is it about the orchid that has enthralled the imagination for so many centuries? And why do they still provoke so much wonder? Following the stories of orchids throughout history, Jim Endersby divides our attraction to them into four key themes: science, empire, sex, and death. When it comes to empire, for instance, orchids are a prime example of the exotic riches sought by Europeans as they shaped their plans for colonization. He also reveals how Charles Darwin's theory of evolution became intimately entangled with the story of the orchid as he investigated their methods of cross-pollination. As he shows, orchids – perhaps because of their extraordinarily diverse colors, shapes, and sizes – have also bloomed repeatedly in films, novels, plays, and poems, from Shakespeare to science fiction, from thrillers to elaborate modernist novels. Featuring many gorgeous illustrations from the collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, "Orchid: A Cultural History" tells, for the first time, the extraordinary story of orchids and our prolific interest in them. It is an enchanting tale not only for gardeners and plant collectors, but anyone curious about the flower's obsessive hold on the imagination in history, cinema, literature, and more.
About the Author
Jim Endersby is a reader in the history of science at the University of Sussex. He is the author of "A Guinea Pig's History of Biology" and "Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science".
Reviews
"Lively, gripping".-Sunday Times
"Traces the story of our fascination with these elegant flowers".-Daily Mail
"'Orchid: A Cultural History' explores the associations that have endowed this flower with significance, and describes how the orchid's identity has run the gamut from romance and seduction to decadence and cunning. Endersby understands the importance of making science accessible to a general audience, and in 'Orchid' he initially grabs readers' attention by emphasizing the plant's historic identity as an aphrodisiac".-The Weekly Standard
"An orchid thriller. Orchids are beautiful, strange, savage, sexy, mysterious, luxurious and expensive rarities. From H. G. Wells to Susan Orlean, and even James Bond movies, orchids turn up everywhere. Explorers have died searching for new orchids in faraway steamy jungles. Endersby traces the history of our scientific understanding of orchids, and their culture, from the Greeks to present orchid enthusiasts. You won't be able to put down this lavishly illustrated and fascinating book" – Stephen Buchmann, author of "The Reason for Flowers"
"Endersby has written an engaging and enlightening account of one of the Earth's most mythologized botanical wonders" – Richard Conniff, author of "House of Lost Worlds"
"Endersby will convince you that the only things odder than orchid flowers are the minds of male humans. Although botanists, horticulturists and Charles Darwin blew away thousands of years of whacky folklore their facts were twisted, influencing many movies, detective novels and science fiction stories. The Victorian 'Language of Flowers' should be revised for the turn of the century until orchids become symbols of words like 'Contradiction' and 'Suspicion'" – Peter Bernhardt, author of "Darwin's Orchids: Then and Now"
"In this seductive and clever survey, Endersby brilliantly shows how the range of meanings attributed to the extraordinary and beautiful varieties of orchid emerged from fundamental features of European culture, from classical Greece to networked modernity" – Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge
"'Orchid' compellingly demonstrates that the cultural history of these plants is as strange, wonderful, and varied – and as full of sexual mystery – as orchids are themselves. The relationships between the stories of orchids told by scientists and those told by writers, filmmakers, collectors, and journalists prove to be, like the relationships between orchids and their pollinators, overwhelmingly cases of cross-fertilization" – Jonathan Smith, University of Michigan-Dearborn
