“Orchid: A Cultural History” will please anyone who loves orchids and is not offended by frank descriptions. From its first appearance in an ancient Greek herbal, the orchid has been associated with sex, and Jim Endersby makes clear that association continues to the present. Orchids have been associated with subjects as wide-ranging as death (in one fictional account a blossom consumes a human), masculinity, female temptation, and homosexuality.
Endersby traces the orchid’s appearance in myth, art, literature, and film. The late 19th century English “orchidmania” is a particularly rich lode. The adventures of real life orchid hunters make fascinating reading, but much fiction grew out of it as well. For instance, in “The Pollinators of Eden” by John Boyd (1969) the pseudocopulation of one type of orchid (a fascinating true phenomenon also described in Orchid) was stretched to include intelligent orchids copulating with humans. The author knows his orchids and includes solid scientific information along with the plant’s less rational associations. This is serious history with a light touch.
Published in the February 2018 Leaflet Volume 2, Issue 5.