Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers

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. (Dec.)