Sunday 21 February 2016

Madness And Beauty

As I warned you in an earlier post, the Cambridge Botanic Garden is holding another Orchid Festival. This year the theme is The Orchid Hunters, so here are some tales of those remarkable men, interspersed with pictures of some of the beautiful blooms on view.



In 1818, so the story goes, one William Swainson was collecting plants in South America. He sent a box of specimens to London, using orchids as a packing material. On arrival one burst into flower and started "orchid fever" as everyone marvelled at the beauty of these exotic plants.



However the story is probably just a myth, Swainson knew exactly what he was doing and the plants, in all likelihood, were carefully tended when they reached London. 



What was very real however was the craziness which followed, with plant hunters penetrating jungles and remote mountain ranges in search of orchids. Partly this was fuelled by the sheer number of orchid species, but it was also because no one at the time knew how to propagate the plants successfully, so huge numbers of plants were sent back to Europe, many not surviving the trip.



One of the largest collections was at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. The head gardener at the time was Joseph Paxton, who later went on to find fame as the architect of the Crystal Palace. He dispatched two of his gardeners, Wallace and Banks, in search of new species. They were warned to "beware of bears and women, both of which were hindrances to the placid life of a plant collector". Their trip turned out to be anything but placid and they were both drowned in a turbulent river. Paxton took the tragedy very personally and never organised another expedition.



One of the leading collectors was Benedict Roezl who was employed by Frederick Sander, a German who ran a very successful orchid business from St Albans in Hertfordshire. Despite losing a hand in an accident in Cuba, Roezl discovered over 400 species and had more then forty named after him.


One unfortunate group of orchid hunters was captured and held hostage in Papua New Guinea. They were eventually rescued by Indonesian troops, but not before two had been beheaded. Others perished elsewhere; dysentery taking David Bowman, yellow fever being the fate of Gustavo Wallis, while William Arnold was drowned in the Orinoco.



In 1901 a party of eight set out for the Philippines in pursuit of rare species. One was eaten by a tiger, another was dowsed in cooking oil and burned to death, and five more disappeared without trace. The single survivor returned with 7,000 orchid specimens.



One rare orchid was described by  J. J. Smith in 1932, but was lost to cultivation till it was rediscovered during the Second World War by the piratically-named Captain Neptune Blood (you couldn't make this up, could you?). Blood might have been forgiven for having things other than orchids on his mind at the time as he was busy avoiding the attentions of the Japanese army.



Even modern day orchid hunters can get into scrapes as Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder discovered in 2000 when they were captured and held for nine months by FARC guerillas in Central America.

Little did I realise, when I was trundling around the local garden centre looking for an orchid for my mother, that I was joining such a daring and dangerous group of men!

Take care.



18 comments:

  1. What gorgeous flowers and photos! And who knew what a dangerous profession "orchid hunter" was. Bears and women seems the least of their problems.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Spectacular! On this dreary morning, you've brightened my day. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Goodness me! It sounds more like a 'Horror' movie script than a gentle pastime gathering Orchid species!

    Wonderful images and interesting of not gory information John.;-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. That should read 'if not' not 'of not'...oh dearie me!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Are you trying to persuade us that you are 'daring and dangerous'?
    I doubt it when I think of your lovely peaceful, gentle posts over the years!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Very interesting tales, and gorgeous images of the flowers - thanks for sharing :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Stunning. The lighting in these photos is as striking as the flowers. Absolutely fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Such brilliant photos! I have a few "supermarket" orchids that I wintered on my dining room table. They have certainly brightened the dark winter days. Some I've had for several years. A good read about the madness of orchid hunting is The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean.

    *apology if more posts show up--this is the 3rd time I tried--think it's my ipad.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Very beautiful! By coincidence, my local garden club had an orchid grower for a speaker last Tuesday.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Vivid indeed, and a real triffid feel about some of the specimens!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Orchids are the runway models of the plant kingdom. Interesting read you included in this post John. Well done. Another good read is Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen.

    ReplyDelete
  12. What a price to pay for flowers. I had no clue about this. They are beautiful, though. I will never look at them the same. Thanks for this informative post.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Great stories, along with spectacular photos of beautiful plants!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Fabulous photos of orchids and interesting stories in between. My favorite orchid is the fifth in this collection. The mysterious flower forms and patterns of petals attract me but since I found difficulty to bloom orchid flowers every year, I haven’t purchased none but visited exhibition only.

    Yoko

    ReplyDelete
  15. Interesting stories and gorgeous images, as always.
    Did you find a rare orchid for your mother?

    ReplyDelete
  16. All so beautiful. Thanks to the single-minded, obsessive men who traveled into far flung places, risking their lives, to search for these special gems.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I'll try to answer any questions via a comment or e-mail within the next day or two (no hard questions, please!).