Taking a gap year between college and graduate school is often a time for young students to explore distant parts of the world, perhaps to donate their time to a devoted cause, or to learn a different culture. Very few spend the time botanizing. This is what makes Leif Bersweden’s story so interesting. At age seven, he found his first orchid: “Mum, this flower looks just like a bee.” From this simple beginning, a passion grew, and he decided to spend his gap year tracking down and photographing all 52 native species of Orchidaceae in Great Britain and Ireland. He relates his story in “The Orchid Hunter: A Young Botanist’s Search for Happiness.”
This was no small task. In general, the orchids of the British Isles are not showy except up close and easily hide amongst other vegetation. Some are extremely rare. Most are located well off beaten pathways, difficult to reach with Bersweden’s car that was prone to breaking down. Actually two cars. The first did not last the year. Meanwhile, our young botanist was growing up and undergoing many of the usual coming-of-age emotional upheavals.
Other than the botanical theme, why am I recommending this book? Because Bersweden is an excellent storyteller. Combining this with a plant theme is a bonus. In additional to his personal challenges and triumphs, he is adept at telling the history of British and Irish botany and related studies of wildflowers. Best of all, you the reader get caught up in the chase! (Spoiler alert). Will he succeed in finding all 52 native orchids despite a late spring, a hot summer, the challenges of driving 10,000 miles on often minimal roads, and some iffy accommodations? Happily, he does.
And happily for the reader, he never loses his sense of humor. He notes that the Fly Orchid (Ophrys insectifera), despite the name, is pollinated by a digger wasp. “It looks very different from the Fly Orchid flower. So different, in fact, that you really start to question the wasp’s intelligence. How can it possibly be duped into thinking the orchid flower…is its star-crossed lover?” After explaining how the smell and feel of the Fly Orchid is the attraction, he concludes: “To the digger wasp, the Fly Orchid is a sex toy, not perfectly life-like but able to arouse the senses and cloy the mind.”
Excerpted from the Fall 2019 Arboretum Bulletin.