Merchants would send fearless, often unscrupulous, orchid hunters on expeditions to scour tropical forests in search of new species. The hunters would thwart and cheat each other at every opportunity; including stripping orchids and burning the land to deny rivals any leftovers. Many died in the hunt. Some were murdered.
By the beginning of the 20th century orchids had become a symbol of the privileged world. In 1913 an orchid house at London’s Kew Gardens was attacked by women campaigning for the vote. But fascination bloomed again in the 1960s as new cultivation techniques made orchids available to the wider public. Orchids are loved today as much as they ever were.
