Orchids bring joy to winter

SOME plants capture the imagination and even adoration of gardeners and plant collectors.

- DIARMUID GAVIN

In Victorian times, pteridomania or fern fever took hold. Ferns and fern imagery populated houses, literature and art, and collectors hunted furiously for exotic species.

Similarly in Holland, they went cuckoo over the tulip and this became known as Tulipmania.

Collectors vied with each other for prized bulbs and prices reached the roof, and in some cases, the price of a house.

Orchids are another species that exert this fascination, and once again the Victorians led the way, sending collectors across the world to gather specimens at great expense and often into dangerous situations.

The term coined for this collective plant madness was Orchidelirium.