Staff writer for the New Yorker Orlean first encountered John
Laroche's name in a 'short but alluring' newspaper item which
alerted all her journalistic instincts. Laroche had been arrested
for stealing wild, endangered orchids from a Florida swamp. He was
apparently addiction-prone and orchids were his latest mania. This
snipped led the author into a bizarre, sometimes frightening,
world. Orlean writes with the crisp clarity of a journalist but the
sensitivity of a poet and the book is packed with 'stories' about
Florida itself, its other horticultural excesses and its very
independent American-Indians. You don't have to be a plant person
to be riveted. (Kirkus UK)
The Fakahatchee Strand, Florida, once a vast swamp awash with indiginous orchids, was plundered during the orchid boom of the 1890s. Its remaining plants, now fiercely protected by law, still attract the unwelcome attentions of thieves. John Laroche is one such self-confessed and convicted thief.
Intrigued by newspaper reports of his trial, Susan Orlean followed Laroche on an enthralling exploration into the eccentric world of the obsessive orchid collectors; a subculture of aristocrats, enthusiasts and smugglers whose passion for plants is all-consuming.
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