Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers

by Erica Hannickel

Overview

Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

A kaleidoscopic journey into the world of nature’s most tantalizing flower, and the lives it has inspired.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393867299
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	12/20/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	19 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Orchidelirium xi

Part I Orchid Love, Orchid Lust, and Orchid Sex

Chapter 1 Lusty Ladies of the Enlightenment 3

Chapter 2 Orchids Fit for a Chinese Empress 23

Chapter 3 Orchids in the Tenderloin 38

Chapter 4 Frida Kahlo's Orchid 54

Part II The Science of an Obsession

Chapter 5 Rafinesque's Strange Collections 73

Chapter 6 The Wind Orchid 88

Chapter 7 The Science of Freedom and Darwin's "Little Book on Orchids" 105

Part III The Business of Beauty

Chapter 8 Itinerant Orchids, Enslaved People 127

Chapter 9 Jane Loudon and Her Floriferous Press 142

Chapter 10 Orchids and Steel 161

Part IV Orchid Culture

Chapter 11 The Flowers, Fashion, and Friendships of Empress Eugénie 181

Chapter 12 The Historian, the Actor, and the Healing of Orchids 201

Chapter 13 Orchid Art and Conservation 221

Appendices

Glossary of Orchid Terms 243

Top Fifteen Tips for Growing Orchids 249

Acknowledgments 255

Notes 259

Selected Bibliographies by Chapter 273

Illustration Credits 287

Index 293

Editorial Reviews

08/22/2022

Hannickel (Empire of Vines: Wine Culture in America), a professor of environmental history at Northland College, offers a vibrant survey of orchids through history. To show how the flowers “provide insight into human history,” she tours a wealth of figures who have taken a liking to them. Empress Eugenie packed the Tuileries’ greenhouses with orchids; Frida Kahlo painted a “giant lavender cattleya”; Charles Roebling, who designed the Brooklyn Bridge, “had one of the finest orchid collections in the United States”; and Raymond Burr “took solace” in them. Darwin, meanwhile, whose grandfather was an avid gardener, followed On the Origin of Species with a treatise titled The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects, further developing his theory of evolution, and historian John Hope Franklin cultivated 900 species of orchids over three decades and built a greenhouse on the roof of his Chicago home. Hannickel’s comprehensive, fascinating history is leavened with plenty of amusing tidbits—readers will learn, for instance, that Burr named the hybrids he experimented on after his costars, including Florence Henderson and Molly Picon. Fans of Rebecca Solnit’s Orwell’s Roses should give this a look. Photos. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"An entertaining romp through the history of human adventures with orchids."

Wall Street Journal - Dominique Browning

"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

"Here is a collection of stories made not only for those readers already passionate about orchids but also for the rest of us who had no idea of the history, drama, and sensual energy behind these flowers. At turns ambitious, entertaining, and surprising, Hannickel’s work rewrites the story of orchids to include women, queer people, and people of color from around the globe. Perhaps the greatest thing about this book is how it draws our focus to the intimate details of creation, inviting our gaze, seducing us into the voluptuous, delicate beauty of a natural world that ultimately—and more desperately than ever—depends on our care."

Paul Bogard

"Orchid Muse is a delightful assemblage of some of the less-known vignettes in orchid history. The cultural information and tips are a perfect jumping point for any reader who wants to take the enthusiasm she inspires for orchids beyond the pages of her book."

George Guenther

"Well-researched and beautifully presented, this book is sure to be popular with orchid enthusiasts and those who enjoy natural history."

Booklist

"Orchid Muse is a joyful reminder of why I fell in love with botany—a fascinating read for the expert and those who can hardly discern orchids from okra."

Douglas Holland

"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

"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

"At a time when women’s rights are being challenged and there is increasingly strong socioeconomic disparity in the world, readers will particularly enjoy reading about Charles Darwin’s anti-slavery efforts through orchids and 1880s New York City’s Eden Musée, a dime museum 'crowded with orchid lovers whose favorite flowers had helped them pretend to transcend class and gender barriers for a time.' Each page of Orchid Muse offers new insight into the history of orchids."

Brenda Oviatt

"A fun fascinating romp through the history of the world’s favorite flower."

Bruce Rogers

Nicol Zanzarella's narration lends elegance and gravitas to the exquisite orchid plant, which has an impressive international history and continues to evoke the passions of an ever-growing fan club. Much more than a detailed explanation of orchid care, this audiobook is a comprehensive dive into the orchid's influence on culturally significant people--rulers, like China's 1860s Empress Dowager Cixi; artists, like Frida Kahlo; and scientists, like Charles Darwin. Zanzarella expresses awe and solemnity as she uncovers the dark side of the procurement and propagation of this precious commodity, which includes slavery and the destruction of rainforests. Whether or not one is an orchidist, this is a fascinating listen as orchid history sheds light on humankind's social evolution. M.F. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2023 - AudioFile

Nicol Zanzarella's narration lends elegance and gravitas to the exquisite orchid plant, which has an impressive international history and continues to evoke the passions of an ever-growing fan club. Much more than a detailed explanation of orchid care, this audiobook is a comprehensive dive into the orchid's influence on culturally significant people--rulers, like China's 1860s Empress Dowager Cixi; artists, like Frida Kahlo; and scientists, like Charles Darwin. Zanzarella expresses awe and solemnity as she uncovers the dark side of the procurement and propagation of this precious commodity, which includes slavery and the destruction of rainforests. Whether or not one is an orchidist, this is a fascinating listen as orchid history sheds light on humankind's social evolution. M.F. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2023 - AudioFile

2022-08-11
A celebration of the world’s second largest family of plants.

In a charming, informative, and profusely, colorfully illustrated volume, gardener and environmental historian Hannickel looks at the global phenomenon of “orchidomania” through profiles of men and women who had an exuberant passion for studying, collecting, growing, and displaying the elegant plant. Love of orchids transcends time and place—in ancient China, feudal Japan, and Victorian England, the plant was revered. Erasmus Darwin and his son Charles were interested especially in the orchid’s intricate process of pollination: For Erasmus, the flower’s carnal acts “could be loving, violent, duplicitous, and sometimes downright murderous.” Charles investigated orchids’ “ingenious sexual subterfuge upon insects.” Naturalists were not alone in their fascination with orchids. Hannickel traces the first orchid show to 1887, when plants from all over the world were exhibited at a New York City dime museum, an odd event for a venue that boasted all manner of weird, fake, and sensational artifacts. The hugely popular exhibition inspired the jeweler Charles Lewis Tiffany to create 25 jewel-encrusted orchid brooches, which he displayed at the Paris Exposition in 1889 and sold in his Manhattan store. Orchidomania, not surprisingly, threatened habitats, as plant hunters, in their lust for the rare and beautiful, wrenched orchids from their native soil. In the early 20th century, orchidelirium reached its height, with wealthy collectors amassing plants in specially constructed conservatories. One species fueled an industry: Vanilla planifolia provides 95% of the pods used for flavoring, but its pollination was especially arduous—until, in 1841, an enslaved boy on an island off the coast of Madagascar invented a method of hand-pollination, thereby revolutionizing the vanilla industry. Each chapter ends with a profile of a particular species, including its morphology and needs. In an appendix, Hannickel shares 15 tips for choosing, handling, and raising orchids, making this entertaining book a practical companion for orchid growers.

A garden of delights.

Kirkus Reviews