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

by Eric Hansen

Release Date: 13 February, 2001

Edition: Paperback

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Lust and Lunacy: that's putting it mildly

Eric Hansen's book is absolutely intriguing. Hansen spent years tracking down people who are crazy about orchids, interviewing them, and researching complex interactions between institutions that supposedly conserve and breed orchids, and -- of all things -- smugglers. I couldn't put the book down, nor did I want to when I came to the end.

What impressed me the most about Hansen's book is the skillful and sympathetic way in which he evoked these passionate people and their nutty but richly meaningful world. I suspect human society is more full of devotion and near-insanity than we generally realize, but rarely can a writer bring it out in the way Hansen has done. From the orchid-collecting thug in Borneo (who sends his hit man after anyone who steals his pollinia) to the French teenager raising orchids with new and disturbingly powerful pesticides to the elderly woman in Seattle entranced by her sexy paphiopedilum -- this is better than any fiction I've read for a long time, and it's all true.

Orchid Lunacy

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!