Awards

• Long-listed for PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award 2023
• Winner of Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries Literature Award 2023

Overview

The epitome of floral beauty, orchids have long fostered works of art, tales of adventure, and scientific discovery. Tenacious plant hunters have traversed continents to collect rare specimens; naturalists and shoguns have marveled at orchids' seductive architecture; royalty and the smart set have adorned themselves with their allure. In Orchid Muse, historian and home grower Erica Hannickel gathers these bold tales of the orchid-smitten throughout history, while providing tips on cultivating the extraordinary flowers she features. Consider Empress Eugenie and Queen Victoria, the two most powerful women in nineteenth-century Europe, who shared a passion for Coelogyne cristata, with its cascading, fragrant white blooms. John Roebling, builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, cultivated thousands of orchids and introduced captivating hybrids. Edmond Albius, an enslaved youth on an island off the coast of Madagascar, was the first person to hand-pollinate Vanilla planifolia, leading to vanilla's global boom. Artist Frida Kahlo was drawn to the lavender petals of Cattleya gigas and immortalized the flower's wilting form in a harrowing self-portrait, while more recently Margaret Mee painted the orchids she discovered in the Amazon to advocate for their conservation. The story of orchidomania is one that spans the globe, transporting readers from the glories of the palace gardens of Chinese Empress Cixi to a seedy dime museum in Gilded Age New York's Tenderloin, from hazardous jungles to the greenhouses and bookshelves of Victorian collectors. Lush and inviting, with radiant full-color illustrations throughout, Orchid Muse is the ultimate celebration of our enduring fascination with these beguiling flowers.

Full Product Details

9780393867282

Table of Contents

Reviews

A fascinating survey of one of the world's most intriguing (and provocative!) blooms, complete with lush illustrations and fascinating historical anecdotes. This book is an enchanting read for any gardener, house plant enthusiast, or history lover.--Jessica Roux, author of Floriography A fun fascinating romp through the history of the world's favorite flower.--Bruce Rogers, author of The Orchid Whisperer Erica Hannickel's gorgeously illustrated Orchid Muse is a reader's delight--crammed with fascinating stories about everything orchid, from the pleasure gardens of the Chinese Empress Cixi to the shoguns of feudal Japan, a nineteenth-century female science fiction author with a passion for botany, the dime museums of Manhattan's Tenderloin district, a little-known work by Charles Darwin, and the twelve-year-old slave boy who solved the mystery of vanilla pollination. This rich and delightful story of the voluptuous orchid is bound to convert all who encounter it to what the Victorians called orchidelirium.--Rebecca Rupp, author of How Carrots Won the Trojan War If flowers are how plants have sex, orchids are the sexiest 'harlot-nymphs' of them all, as Erica Hannickel reveals in this delightful and exquisitely explicit ode to orchidelirium.--Adam Leith Gollner, author of The Fruit Hunters

If flowers are how plants have sex, orchids are the sexiest 'harlot-nymphs' of them all, as Erica Hannickel reveals in this delightful and exquisitely explicit ode to orchidelirium. -- Adam Leith Gollner, author of The Fruit Hunters A fascinating survey of one of the world's most intriguing (and provocative!) blooms, complete with lush illustrations and fascinating historical anecdotes. This book is an enchanting read for any gardener, house plant enthusiast, or history lover. -- Jessica Roux, author of Floriography A fun fascinating romp through the history of the world's favorite flower. -- Bruce Rogers, author of The Orchid Whisperer Erica Hannickel's gorgeously illustrated Orchid Muse is a reader's delight-crammed with fascinating stories about everything orchid, from the pleasure gardens of the Chinese Empress Cixi to the shoguns of feudal Japan, a nineteenth-century female science fiction author with a passion for botany, the dime museums of Manhattan's Tenderloin district, a little-known work by Charles Darwin, and the twelve-year-old slave boy who solved the mystery of vanilla pollination. This rich and delightful story of the voluptuous orchid is bound to convert all who encounter it to what the Victorians called orchidelirium. -- Rebecca Rupp, author of How Carrots Won the Trojan War

Author Information

Erica Hannickel, a master gardener, is professor of environmental history at Northland College. The author of Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers and Empire of Vines: Wine Culture in America, she writes for Orchids magazine and blogs at www.orchidmuse.com. She lives in Wisconsin.

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