Orchid : a cultural history / Jim Endersby.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-283) and index.

Introduction: imagining orchids -- Censored origins -- The lesbian boy -- The uses of orchids -- Red book, black flower -- Utopian botany -- The signature of all things -- The name of the orchid -- Making a family -- A second Adam -- Artificial to natural -- Myths of orchids -- Orchidmania -- The blooming aristocracy -- Orchis bank -- Every trifling detail -- Beautiful contrivances -- The scramble for orchids -- Lost orchids -- Cannibal tales -- Savage orchids -- Long purples and a forked radish -- Queer flowers -- Creation and consolation -- Sexy orchids -- Boy's own orchids -- Manly orchids -- Frail orchids -- Deceptive orchids -- Orchids in orbit -- Endangered orchids -- Fragile specialists -- The spider orchids of Sussex -- Conclusion: an orchid's-eye view?

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.