In 1993 Eric Hansen led an expedition through the steaming jungles of Borneo to find the world's rarest orchid. Five years later he was still on the trail of the true story behind one of the world's strangest plants and humanity's oddest obsessions. From the Orinoco River to the hothouses of Kew, and the clandestine nurseries of Europe to the peat bogs of northern Minnesota, this is a tale of orchid smugglers, ice-cream makers and visionary breeders; of corruption, murder and moths with twelve-inch tongues; and of the vicious, bizarre world of international plant politics, and the wide range of gentle people whose overriding passion in life is the cultivation of these beautiful, fragile flowers. Funny, weird, poignant and completely unputdownable, ORCHID FEVER is an exhilarating, provocative journey to the heart of orchidaceous darkness.