Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy by Eric Hansen

Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy Reviews

• 
  Peggy

  Caution: Do Not read the opening passages of this book while drinking. Or in public. Or anywhere you would be embarassed to be caught laughing out loud.
  
  I ran around from coworker to coworker and forced them to listen to me read passages aloud. I read to myself and giggled audibly (I also chuckled, chortled, and snorted, but I don’t like to talk about that.). I knew a tiny bit about orchids and orchid growers from reading The Orchid Thief (which I also recommend), but I believed that it was an isolated incident. Boy was I wrong.
  
  These people are crazy! It’s a flower, for pete’s squeak, not diamonds or gold. But Hansen does an excellent job drawing you in and introducing you to the orchid people. You’ll become fascinated with the intricacies of orchid law and lore, but mostly with those who flout the (admittedly wacky) rules all for the love of a flower.
  
  There’s the sweet little old lady with tens of thousands of dollars in contraband orchids in her basement. There’s the orchid lawmakers, most of whom wouldn’t recognize an orchid if it ran up and bit ‘em on the ankle. There’s the vicious infighting and competition for the rarest bulbs. There’s the passel of government agents, armed with machine guns, no less, who tear up some guys flooring because they believe he smuggles orchids.
  
  Who knew the passions one little flower could arouse? Do yourself a favor and check this one out. Hansen clearly is as enthralled with his subjects as they are with orchids, and that makes for a very entertaining read indeed
  
• 
  Louise

  Who would have expected that the world of orchid collectors would be dangerous? Along with experiencing this rough and wacky world, in this book you will learn a lot about orchids and how endangered flora are, in theory, “protected”.
  
  Eric Hansen introduces you to people in the orchid community and those involved in orchid politics. The book begins with an orchid hunt in Borneo, where the scientifically equipped researchers contrast significantly with their local guides. You encounter and learn of orchid lovers who have spent time in jail due to orchid “rescues”. In competitions, overweight judges coldly dismiss orchids they consider “fat”. In Turkey you can have ice cream flavored with the root of a local orchid which is said to be a potent aphrodisiac. In New York you learn how the orchid smell is measured and documented by a “nose”.
  
  You also meet a botanical gardens director who hides his involvement in orchid smuggling, an elderly wealthy collector who rues the day he worked on international orchid preservation standards and a grower in Minnesota who seems to be one of the rare people who have actually rescued wild orchids from modern development.
  
  Besides the everyday competition and jealousy that you find in most endeavors, the orchid community lives with CITES regulations. These international guidelines were hastily written and at the time of this book were enforced by lawyers and bureaucrats, most of whom know little about botany let alone orchards. Hansen shows how the effort they expend to preserve rare species can have the opposite effect. In order to study and/or save rare species, either the CITES and/or its enforcers are often disregarded and sometimes with great consequences. I wonder if this system is still in place.
  
  This book is a light read. The chapters are short and the material is engagingly written. It is very good, but if you are going to read just one of Hansen’s books, read “Stranger in the Forest”
• 
  Cynthia

  this book started out like gangbusters and was laugh out loud funny but then it lost the fun thread and started to be more obsessively about government regulations and how dumb they are and how ultimately they are going to destroy rare orchids, not protect them. But the first half ofthe book is definitely a great read.
• 
  Abby

  An enjoyable, pleasantly written romp through the weird world of orchid hunters, breeders, and thieves. Recommended for amateur orchid enthusiasts.
• 
  Steve Woods

  I love orchids! I certainly don't see myself as the kind of person who would kill others or break the law in any terrible way in pursuit of that passion however it has been one of the great pleasures of living in SE Asia that orchids are everywhere and I must admit to having slipped the odd one for transplantation in my garden over international borders. This book was handed to me by a friend who lives in Indonesia who had witnessed such a minor crime of passion and so thought I might be interested in this tale.
  
  There is also another line of convergence here aside from my passionate enjoyment of the pure beauty which orchids can offer. I have noted after some decades of living in Asia the decimation of wildlife through the now illegal trade of animals and animal products. I have always therefore been a strongly vocal supporter of CITES as a way of ameliorating rapine practices in the wild for the achievement of either profit or a better erection. It may not surprise anyone that while I have been developing this stance about wildlife I have also evolved a position about the corrupt, bureaucratic, unaccountable, and generally incompetent activities of many, many (the greater proportion in my opinion) NGO's and UN functionaries who seem far more interested in their inflated salaries, obscene allowances and living the expatriate high life while they wild tremendous power over their various domains than actually doing anything practically useful.
  
  Imagine my surprise when all of this came together in this obscure book where the idiocy of putting the evolution of anything meaningful let alone its administration into the hands of these people is lauded so loudly and clearly. The CITES as drafted to cover plants including orchids was ineptly adapted by lawyers and bureaucrats who though overpaid were certainly less than qualified to comment. The result is very bad legislation which in fact contributes actively to the destruction of the very plant species it claims to protect from groups of ardent if sometimes fanatical enthusiasts whose work does far more good than harm. Their entire combined yearly activity would do significantly less damage than the clearing of a single logging site anywhere in the world. These people who would at their own cost "rescue" all endangered or rare plants from suc a site at their own expense are in fact prohibited from doing so by CITES.
  
  Add that kind of idiocy to the millions spent on maintaining poorly trained officials who enforce the legislation with nothing less than Draconian zeal, often on behalf of power brokers from so called "scientific institutions" who are pursuing their own agendas, personal political and otherwise and you get the picture.
  
  The frustration in all of this is that a single person capable of common sense with the appropriate authority could rewrite the legislation so it fitted the circumstances and establish a body which for a fraction of the current enforcement costs could harness the good will of the many enthusiasts who are well known towards the actual preservation of species under threat, which after all was supposed to be the purpose of the CITES initiative in the first place. This of course goes without consideration of those in the international arena with their noses in the particularly lush trough that goes with the conferences, position and perks related to the staus quo. They would certainly fight tooth and nail to keep the flow coming...who cares about the plants when their wallet is at stake.
• 
  Kathleen (itpdx)

  A lot of interesting information and interesting characters that inhabit the world of orchids. Hansen conveys the information in short, tidy chapters from his personal experiences and interviews. This is a clear example of unintended consequences of rule making. I haven't been able to figure out if anything has changed since this book was published in 2000.
  Hansen sometimes reaches a little too hard for a laugh.
• 
  latner3

  'A Horticultural Tale of love,Lust and Lunacy'.
  Lubricious. Paphiopedilum sanderianum, is my favorite. Very good read.
• 
  Arminzerella

  Eric Hansen has his interest piqued by a couple of orchid hunters/scientists who pay him to lead them into the wilds of Borneo (setting of his book, "Stranger in the Forest") and regale him with tales of plant hunters gone wild (murder, mayhem, run-ins with the law). As Hansen begins his own research into orchids and their fanciers, he learns that most of these tales are true. He shares his own compelling tales of orchids, orchid collectors (fanatics), and the legal systems (CITES) that thwart them all in the interest of conservation and preservation. Fascinating, funny, and infuriating. Readers will emerge ravenous for more.
  
  This came out a couple of years after Susan Orlean's bestselling, "The Orchid Thief," which touches upon some of the same topics. Orchid people are weird (some delightfully so)! Fans of her book will want to check this one out, too.
• 
  Honey Rand

  Having read BOTH the Orchid Thief and The Scent of Scandal, I was disappointed in this book. Great for research on the inanity of the regulatory system that governs the import and export of orchids... as in, better for them to be plowed under by progress than collected by commercial or scholarly institutions....but it took 75 pages of a 275 page book before the first real "story" about orchids. Following there were anecdotes, some more amusing than others, but the only storyline was the writer's "discovery" of orchid insanity. If you want to appreciate the crazy. Susan Orleans or Craig Pittman's books do the trick in an entertaining fashion. If you are writing your own book about Orchids, you'll need all three!
• 
  Dyan

  Significantly flawed in both content and execution. The book abounds with racist, sexist, classist and fatphobic charicatures of real-life people. Hansen seems to take particular pleasure out of exaggeration and mockery, which diminishes the legitimacy and/or validity of his work somewhat. That being said, he does a good job of highlighting the ridiculous bureaucracy of CITES and other institutions in regulating plant trade under the guise of "conservation". Some regulations unfortunately often end up ignoring or disregarding the actualities and realities of on-the-ground conservation and research efforts.
• 
  Diane Nichols

  This book was way outside my comfort zone not being an avid orchid lover,but despite all the Latin names and horticultural jargon Eric Hansen has written a wonderful tale about the "blind rage, crippling jealousy,and wild exaggeration commonplace in the quirky and insular world of orchids growing".
  I
  Full of eccentric characters my favorite has to be the woman who sniffs an exotic yellow bloom and declares,..." now that is a flower that just makes you want to take your clothes off and roll around on it. "
• 
  Cyr

  An unusual sort of book for me...I think I picked it up at some point at a thrift store for 25 cents, recognizing the title from having read a short excerpt in an online course I took. I don't usually go for this journalistic-type book, but this one was interesting enough. The world of orchid hunters, growers, sellers, and regulators is a complicated and bizarre one, and the people obsessed with orchids are as varied, colorful, and strange as the flowers themselves. Also an excellent case study in bureaucratic wildlife management gone painfully, absurdly wrong.
• 
  Rebecca

  I was expecting this book to be more about the orchids themselves but it was actually more a out the people who collect and trade and sell orchids. It seems as though there is quite a lot of people who are interested in orchids and in some cases it can be a very lucrative business but there are also a lot of people who are criminally charged for not having the right paperwork etc. Anyway, I learned quite a bit about the orchid trading business. I enjoyed reading this book.
• 
  Tobe

  I found this to be a perfect non-fiction book: (1) a very interesting topic about which I knew very little; (2) easy to read, and divided up into easy to digest chapters; (3) filled with colorful and memorable characters. Hansen has great fun with his subject, ushering us into the weirdly obsessive world of orchids.
• 
  Randa D'aoust

  This was an unusual look at the orchid industry. I had no idea of the amount of politics and regulations that are involved in the growing, selling, and studying of the orchid. While some parts were more technical than I (a non-orchid grower or scientist) wanted, I could still understand the concepts and overall picture of the industry.
• 
  Selina

  A little redundant, but otherwise great! It’s a great study of passionate hobbyists an professionals more than the plants that took years of travel and research. I expected more discussion of Victorian orchid collectors and habits, but the modern challenges are just as interesting. I’m curious to see whether international policies have changed and would definitely read another book by Hansen.
• 
  A.R. Jarvis

  Was an okay book, once you accept that the author is a white man and all that entails (this is g-d non-fiction, and you’re going to describe the two orchid-related women you meet in terms that, were this a romance, mean you’re going to end up married???? Pppfffffttt. And the native tribes of Borneo were his friends, but yet they still get Noble Savage treatment...for shame).
• 
  Ian Hodkinson

  I feared this might be a bit dry but it's a well-written exposé of the national and individual lunacy that surrounds the collecting and delings of orchid enthusiasts, both professional and amateur. The humorous tone and style adopted by the author is spot on.
• 
  Lisa Lindsay

  Anyone who enjoyed reading about the tulip mania that rocked the Netherlands in the 1630s should like this book as well. The author visited orchid growers and gardens all over, and he encountered an illicit subculture of obsession and jealousy. A gripping history, much more so than I expected.
• 
  Dr Susan

  Thoroughly enjoyed reading this delightful introduction to the orchid family and especially about all the hold they have over us. A good travelogue too and when ever travel comes back I'm off to find the orchid icecream.
• 
  Melanie Linn

  Now I feel the unrelenting urge to go buy a paphiopedilum...
• 
  Kobi

  I just keep wishing that this book was a radio show instead of a book, that's all.
• 
  Lucky Christi

  Funny, entertaining and interesting.
• 
  Helen Wall

  Finished this soooo long ago!