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Article: Cover Story: Obsession Orchids have always preyed on the minds of British gardeners - but they drove the Victorians completely crazy. Anna Pavord on the history and art of a strange cult
- Article from:
- The Independent on Sunday (London, England)
- Article date:
- May 30, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2004 The Independent on Sunday. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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It's impossible to separate sex from the orchid. It's embedded in
its name. It's embodied in its structure. Sex has dictated the
extraordinary modifications of lip and mouth that lure insects into
the voluptuous centre of these terrifying creatures. From the
beginning (the Greek philosopher Theophrastus in c250BC), the flower
was described in terms of the male genitalia. And so from the Greek
word for testicle (orkhis), the orchid gets its name.
It's a flower for obsessives, a theme that Proust explores in
Swann's Way, where the tropical cattleya, an orchid of archetypal
pinkness and feminine frills, becomes a peverse fixation. Nero Wolfe,
the detective hero of Rex Stout's stories shows a ...