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

Zusatztext “An extraordinary! well-told tale of botany! obsession and plant politics. Hansen’s vivid descriptions of the complex techniques some orchids use to pollinate themselves will raise your eyebrows at nature’s sexual ingenuity.”– USA Today Informationen zum Autor Eric Hansen Klappentext The acclaimed author of Motoring with Mohammed brings us a compelling adventure into the remarkable world of the orchid and the impossibly bizarre array of international characters who dedicte their lives to it. The orchid is used for everything from medicine for elephants to an aphrodisiac ice cream. A Malaysian species can grow to weigh half a ton while a South American species fires miniature pollen darts at nectar-sucking bees. But the orchid is also the center of an illicit international business: one grower in Santa Barbara tends his plants while toting an Uzi, and a former collector has been in hiding for seven years after serving a jail sentence for smuggling thirty dollars worth of orchids into Britain. Deftly written and captivatingly researched, Orchid Fever is an endlessly enchanting and entertaining tour of an exotic world. "A wonderful book, I've been up all night reading it, laughing and crying out in horror and clucking at the vivid images of bureaucracy with the bit in its teeth." —Annie Proulx "An extraordinary, well-told tale of botany, obsession and plant politics. Hansen's vivid descriptions of the complex techniques some orchids use to pollinate themselves will raise your eyebrows at nature's sexual ingenuity." —USA Today Chapter One: Journey to Fire Mountain There is something distinctive about the sight and sound of a human body falling from the rain forest canopy. The breathless scream, the wildly gyrating arms and legs pumping thin air, the rush of leaves, snapping branches, and the sickening thud, followed by uneasy silence. Listening to that silence, I reflected on how plant collecting can be an unpleasant sort of activity. Bits of debris continued to fall from the trees and I could make out a faint plume of dust, caught in a shaft of sunlight, that indicated where the body had landed. A nearby sapling swayed back and forth a few times, then stood still. In the distance, obscured by the steaming labyrinth of trees and climbing woody vines, a cicada began its shrieking high-pitched call. The rain forest suddenly felt much closer and far less friendly than it had just a few moments earlier. Sweat dripped from my chin, and I held my breath to halt my growing sense of panic. Then I heard the first moan of pain, and all sense of time and fear was swept away. Earlier that day, I had entered the Borneo rain forest in search of wild orchids. The morning mist was still rising and the dawn bird chorus had just faded as Tiong, a government plant collector, and two of his helpers paused at the base of a limestone cliff to burn joss sticks and stacks of Chinese devotional money. These offerings were intended to appease the spirit world before we started our climb. Everything began well enough, but by midday the mountain spirits responded to our presence. Tiong was near the top of a tree when he reached up and gripped a Wragler's pit viper sleeping on a branch. Within moments, my guide and protector was hurtling through space with two fang marks in the back of his hand. We didn't find the orchids we were looking for, and we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get Tiong off the mountain. Tiong lived, but after that experience, I felt confident that I wouldn't be participating in any more orchid-hunting trips. My journey with Tiong was part of a plan that I had come up with to build an upriver plant nursery for a group of indigenous people known as the Penan. Members of this tribe had helped me to walk across the island of Borneo in 1982 during a six-month-long, 1,500-mile cross-country journey. At the time, many of...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Eric Hansen
• Editore: Vintage USA
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 27.02.2001
• EAN: 9780679771838
• ISBN: 978-0-679-77183-8
• Pagine: 288
• Dimensioni: 132 mm x 203 mm x 15 mm
• Serie: Vintage Departures; Vintage Departures
• Categorie: Guide e manuali > Natura > Giardinaggio; Viaggi > Sport e vacanze attive