Orchid Fever Summary and Analysis

There are more than thirty thousand known species of orchids and potentially thousands more that have yet to be discovered. Orchids are considered the most evolved flowering plants on earth and have an array of unusual looks. The wild orchids often have names based on their looks, including brown, twisted, shiny-leafed, lipped, snaked, rat tail, water spider, etc. The smallest ones are microscopic, while the biggest ones have flowers as big as footballs. They have always been considered freakish.

Orchids are cross-pollinating plants, which means that they are more complex and rely on other living things to pollinate their flowers. These plants are sometime ingenious in the ways that they trick insects to pollinate them, making the union between the orchid and the pollinator eerily perfect. Orchids are currently the biggest flowering plant family on earth and many orchid...