Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession
Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession
Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession
Description
Description
The forgotten story of a decades-long international quest for a rare and coveted orchid, chronicling the botanists, plant hunters, and collectors who relentlessly pursued it at great human and environmental cost.
In 1818, a curious root arrived in a small English village, tucked--seemingly by accident--in a packing case mailed from Brazil. The amateur botanist who cultivated it soon realized that he had something remarkable on his hands: an exceptionally rare orchid never before seen on British shores. It arrived just as "orchid mania" was sweeping across Europe and North America, driving a vast plant trade that catered to wealthy private patrons as well as the fast-growing middle classes eager to display exotic flowers at home. Dubbed Cattleya labiata, the striking purple-and-crimson bloom quickly became one of the most coveted flowers on both continents. As tales of the flower's beauty spread through scientific journals and the popular press, orchid dealers and enthusiasts initiated a massive search to recover it in its natural habitat. Sarah Bilston illuminates the story of this international quest, introducing the collectors and nurserymen who funded expeditions, the working-class plant hunters who set out to find the flower, the South American laborers and specialists with whom they contracted, the botanists who used the latest science to study orchids in all their varieties, and the writers and artists who established the near-mythic status of the "lost orchid." The dark side of this global frenzy was the social and environmental harm it wrought, damaging fragile ecologies on which both humans and plants depended. Following the human ambitions and dramas that drove an international obsession, The Lost Orchid is a story of consumer desire, scientific curiosity, and the devastating power of colonial overreach.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
Deeply and meticulously reported, The Lost Orchid thrillingly illuminates the strange and marvelous world of Victorian orchid collecting, complete with its deceits, vanities, achievements, and obsessions. Bilston is the perfect guide through this eccentric piece of history, placing it firmly in the larger context of cultural and social conquest.--Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief
A riveting history of Victorian orchid mania and its consequences. Bilston deftly illuminates not only the stories and myths that drove an ever-growing trade in orchids, but also the enduring human and environmental costs of this obsession.--Kirk Wallace Johnson, author of The Feather Thief
This book is an enticing portal to another world--one both intimately familiar and strangely foreign--filled with unbridled obsessions, maniacal exploitation, mythical quests, mundane struggles, and larger-than-life characters.--Edward D. Melillo, author of The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the Making of the Modern World
The Lost Orchid is about much more than a mysterious flower. It is an extraordinary tour de force of fine-grained history, deftly tracing the contours of trade, imperialism, greed, scientific argument, and exploitation of both people and nature itself. It is an almost perfect demonstration of what a work in science and literature should be: careful, precise, fully responsible and original, and itself quite a literary accomplishment. Bilston's scholarship is profound and extraordinarily far-reaching. Her detailed and humane discussion of key figures in this history, moreover, resonates with significance amid the crises of our own times.--George Levine, author of Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World
A tale of botany and greed...conveys in colorful detail the 'chaotic urgency' of the feverish pursuit of a remarkable epiphyte. A vibrant natural history.-- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)" (3/4/2025 12:00:00 AM)
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
Publisher:
Harvard University Press
Pub date:
2025-05-06
Length:
400 pages
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