Orchid
Subtitle: a cultural history
By: Jim Endersby
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 292
ISBN-13: 9780226376325
Subjects: Orchids; Orchids in literature; History
Description: Some flowers make us think of love or heaven, of political causes or drug cravings, while others are food, medicine, or decoration; almost every plant that humans have ever taken an interest in has acquired a rich web of associations. So it is not surprising that flowers as alluring as orchids are associated with a very specific set of images, ideas, and symbols. Yet the precise significances we attach to orchids may be, Jim Endersby argues, the weirdest ever to have become linked to a plant. By following orchids through history, Endersby discovers unexpected connections that lead us into myriad other histories.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-283) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: imagining orchids; title: Censored origins; title: The lesbian boy; title: The uses of orchids; title: Red book, black flower; title: Utopian botany; title: The signature of all things; title: The name of the orchid; title: Making a family; title: A second Adam; title: Artificial to natural; title: Myths of orchids; title: Orchidmania; title: The blooming aristocracy; title: Orchis bank; title: Every trifling detail; title: Beautiful contrivances; title: The scramble for orchids; title: Lost orchids; title: Cannibal tales; title: Savage orchids; title: Long purples and a forked radish; title: Queer flowers; title: Creation and consolation; title: Sexy orchids; title: Boy's own orchids; title: Manly orchids; title: Frail orchids; title: Deceptive orchids; title: Orchids in orbit; title: Endangered orchids; title: Fragile specialists; title: The spider orchids of Sussex; title: Conclusion: an orchid's-eye view?