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Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy
 
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Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy [Paperback]

Eric Hansen
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 18.95
Price: CDN$ 13.68 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details
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Product Description

From Amazon.com

At first blush, the subtitle of intrepid traveler Eric Hansen's floral account might seem, well, hyperbolic. After taking this whirlwind tour of the hidden world of rare orchid collectors, the reader will find the words well chosen. Hansen invites us into a strange demimonde of intrigue and desire, at the center of which is the orchid, that shadowy and somewhat sinister parasitic oddball of the plant kingdom. Orchid raising and trading is big business. Worldwide, the retail economy in orchids adds up to some $9 billion; in the United States, wholesalers ship nearly 8.5 million plants a year, while in Holland a single nursery produces 18 million. "Several million people worldwide now grow orchids," the author notes, "and this botanical craze has already eclipsed both the nineteenth-century frenzy for orchids as well as the tulip madness that gripped the Netherlands in the seventeenth century."

With such willing customers, it's no wonder that a thriving black market now exists. To serve it, orchids are taken illegally from sensitive ecological areas in places like Thailand, Borneo, and darkest Minnesota. In scenes reminiscent of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, Hansen follows the trail of orchid smugglers, pursuing money and plants in a whodunit tale that involves botanical gardens, scholars, scientists, ordinary enthusiasts, and "plant cops"--international eco-police whose job it is to stop the traffic in rare and often endangered plants. Those vigilantes have their work cut out for them, Hansen writes, especially because some of the current laws may be misguided, causing more harm than good and equating honest breeders with botanical desperadoes. The laws are bound to fail in any event, he suggests, if only because the plant trade, like that of the drug trade, is simply too big to curtail.

Orchid enthusiasts and admirers of good journalism alike will find plenty of interest in Hansen's vivid, richly anecdotal investigation. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In the same vein as Susan Orlean's Orchid Thief, this captivating tale is not so much about flowers as it is about obsession. In various chapters (some of which have appeared in Natural History magazine), Hansen (Stranger in the Forest; Motoring with Mohammed) examines different facets of the mysterious world of orchids, a universe of incredible subterfuge, erotic plant names and some very eccentric characters. He visits Borneo with two orchid growers and two Penan guides who are extremely puzzled about such enthusiasm over a flower that serves no medicinal or nutritive purpose. Hansen also interviews 84-year-old Eleanor Kerrigan, who in her Seattle basement greenhouse cultivates an illicit orchid collection worth $70,000. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora has a strict policy about certain types of orchids, and many orchid growers and collectors, it turns out, operate on the wrong side of that policy, resulting in an underworld that, as the author notes, resembles the illegal drug trade. Hansen manages to talk to the secretive Henry Azadehdel (a cause c?l?bre in the orchid world since he was arrested for orchid smuggling in 1987) and travels to Turkey to taste orchid ice cream, which is rumored to be an aphrodisiac. Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that after five years of research he has become as obsessed with his subjects as they are with their flowers ("Orchids were doing strange things to me"). The results are fully enjoyable. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

67 Reviews
5 star:
 (61)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (67 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars Orchid Lunacy, Mar 4 2004
By 
A. J. SMITH "Common Man" (Grand Rapids, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy (Paperback)
Eric Hansen's Orchid Fever is a quick, breezy and highly entertaining read. I just picked up a copy at one of the Orchid Gardens mentioned in the book, and will never look at the place the same way again. As with any avocation that stirs passion, the world of orchids has produced as many oddball varieties of aficionados as there are varieties of orchids. Hnasen brings them all wonderfully to life and you feel like a friend to many of them (except for the CITES nazis). Being relatively new to the orchid world I was able to appreciate the references to certain species, but by no means do you have to grow or even like orchids to love the book. I read the book in a day and my thoughts today have drifted to wondering about the characters that I had met, such as Xavier in Paris and the Harley-riding guys in the States that have been infected by the Orchid Fever.
The book wraps up with a heartwarming tale of Tom Nelson in Minnesota, slogging through blackfly and mosquito infested roadside ditches to save native plants from destruction. Not out of money but because it is the right and noble thing to do. It is people like him that give a glimmer of hope in a world that can often cause despair. Eric Hansen's book also serves the same purpose and I highly recommend it!
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5.0 out of 5 stars Orchid Fever, Jan 29 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy (Paperback)
What a tremendous read - I had to keep reminding myself it was non-fiction! Eric, I really was entertained.
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5.0 out of 5 stars It Gives Me Fever, Jan 24 2004
This review is from: Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy (Paperback)
This morning at around two AM, I polished off the last page of 'Orchid Fever'. As a budding author and a generally inquisitive person, I appreciated this work very much. What Hansen has accomplished is a triumph in the field of literary journalism: the perfect balance of interview, research, politics, imagination and anecdote. He has availed his readership of such a wide array of facts, and made them so accessible--! Running through those pages was as effortless as taking in a deep, clean breath of air, yet that single breath has left me so happy and fulfilled...

As I read, I searched the Web for images of the blossoms (and some of the places) he described; this provided me with the perfect counterpoint to your lush prose. No doubt the cost of publishing a work with full-color photographs would be outrageous (and I am grateful for the affordability of the book), but I cannot imagine having grasped his meaning as fully without sneaking a peek for myself. Doubtless other readers have been, and will be likewise compelled.

I am so grateful for the years Hansen put into this book. He has sparked in me a gentle strain of orchid fever, nonetheless one that will surely follow me through life.

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