Beauty and obsession

I picked up the nonfiction book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (LP 635.93 Orlean,) after seeing a reference to it by another poster on Douban and because I had seen the movie and had been curious about the character of John Larouche upon whom the film was focused. I had brushed up against the orchid acquisition fever (Orchidelirium) while I lived in Florida and I knew firsthand the power that collecting orchids could have.

I innocently bought one orchid, then another, and six months later had seventy five orchids with no easing of the drive for more. I found good homes for them all when I left Florida but I must confess that I have murdered four since moving to Kansas in attempts to bring them back into my life. Here is a photo of an orchid growing on my patio fence.


Orlean captures the essence of the disease as she writes the story of John Laroche the orchid thief. She traces the history of orchid collecting (poaching) that swept the modern world as an obsession from the beginning. Laroche was a poacher and he focused on the Fakahatchee Strand area of Florida for his poaching. The primary focus of his desire was the ghost orchid which he thought he could propagate at his nursury and supply in the millions to the masses thereby saving the plant from other poachers and getting rich in the process.

The movie, Adaptation, follows the book, mostly, with the Nicholas Cage twin brother thing thrown in to keep the box office busy, and the Chris Cooper/ Meryl Streep affair thrown in for dramatic effect, I guess. But the character of John Laroche matches up pretty well with the character described by Orlean.

The ghost orchid, an illusive Florida native plant is the main object of Laroche's obsession and drives the story, Orlean puts herself through difficulty trying to just see just one ghost orchid but fails in her quest. As a matter of fact the ghost orchid is mentioned so often and with such passion that one's curiosity could not fail to be stirred but for some reason no photograph nor drawing was included with the book. The orchid bloom on the cover of the book is not a Ghost orchid it is a dendrobium. To satisfy my own need I found a picture of the ghost and included it below.

The flower is beautiful though short-lived. The plant itself is easily overlooked without the bloom. It grows adhering itself to pond apple trees in Florida swamp areas.