Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780679771838)

The acclaimed author of Motoring with Mohammed brings us a compelling adventure into the remarkable world of the orchid and the impossibly bizarre array of international characters who dedicte their lives to it.

The orchid is used for everything from medicine for elephants to an aphrodisiac ice cream. A Malaysian species can grow to weigh half a ton while a South American species fires miniature pollen darts at nectar-sucking bees. But the orchid is also the center of an illicit international business: one grower in Santa Barbara tends his plants while toting an Uzi, and a former collector has been in hiding for seven years after serving a jail sentence for smuggling thirty dollars worth of orchids into Britain. Deftly written and captivatingly researched, Orchid Fever is an endlessly enchanting and entertaining tour of an exotic world.

"A wonderful book, I've been up all night reading it, laughing and crying out in horror and clucking at the vivid images of bureaucracy with the bit in its teeth." --Annie Proulx

"An extraordinary, well-told tale of botany, obsession and plant politics. Hansen's vivid descriptions of the complex techniques some orchids use to pollinate themselves will raise your eyebrows at nature's sexual ingenuity." --USA Today

Author: Eric Hansen
ISBN-10: 0679771832
ISBN-13: 9780679771838
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 02/27/2001
Pages: 290
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.46lbs
Size: 8.04h x 5.26w x 0.61d

Review Citation(s):
Entertainment Weekly 03/09/2001 pg. 75