Amazon.com Review

Orchidelirium is the name the Victorians gave to the flower madness that is for botanical collectors the equivalent of gold fever. The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession

Wealthy orchid fanatics of that era sent explorers (heavily armed, more to protect themselves against other orchid seekers than against hostile natives or wild animals) to unmapped territories in search of new varieties of Cattleya and Paphiopedilum. As knowledge of the family Orchidaceae grew to encompass the currently more  (more…)