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    The Orchid Hunter: A young botanist’s search for happiness
    Unavailable
    The Orchid Hunter: A young botanist’s search for happiness
    Unavailable
    The Orchid Hunter: A young botanist’s search for happiness
    Ebook437 pages5 hours

    The Orchid Hunter: A young botanist’s search for happiness

    By Leif Bersweden

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    He has just a few months to complete his quest – no one has ever done it before within one growing season – and it will require ingenuity, stamina and a large dose of luck.

    As he battles the vagaries of the British climate, feverishly chasing each emerging bloom, Leif Bersweden takes the reader on a remarkable botanical journey.

    This study of the 52 native species is a fantastic gateway into the compendious world of orchids – one that will open your eyes to the rare hidden delights to be found on our doorstep.

    Like Two Owls at Eton and My Family and Other Animals, The Orchid Hunter is a charming account of a precocious adolescent’s obsession with the natural world.

    Leif’s enthusiasm for his quest is infectious, as is the quiet conviction with which he keeps at it, showing how plant hunting can be the ultimate mindful activity.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShort Books Ltd
    Release dateApr 12, 2018
    ISBN9781780723358
    Unavailable
    The Orchid Hunter: A young botanist’s search for happiness
    Author

    Leif Bersweden

    Leif Bersweden graduated with a degree in Biology from Oxford and is currently a PhD student at Kew Gardens. He has loved orchids longer than he can remember. He is also the author of Winter Trees: A Photographic Guide to Common Trees and Shrubs, published by the Field Studies Council in 2013

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    • 4/5
      Whenever orchids are mentioned, most think that they only live in the tropics where their fantastic colours and shapes have dazzled are the ones that have captivated and obsessed people over the ages. This level of obsession has caused grown men to almost lose their minds, squander fortunes and even resort to theft to possess the finest specimens. The United Kingdom has its own collection of orchids that are native to the isles; over fifty of them in fact. Leif Bersweden shares this obsession, having been fascinated with plants from an early age and when an opportunity to take a gap year presents itself, he conceives the idea of travelling around the UK trying to find each and every one of them when they were flowering. Working frantically to save the money for the journey, his parents give their approval for his journey around the UK, his only concern is whether his slight clapped out van is up to making the trip too?

      The season for spotting these plants is from May to September and they are spread all around the country. Some of these plants are rare too, with only one or two endangered plants in secret locations. He will walk through bogs, walk through swathes of wildflowers as he sought orchids on chalk downlands, getting slightly lost whilst pushing his way through trees and slide down sand dunes in search of these small but still beautiful plants.

      This is a really good combined travelogue and natural history book, with a really nice set of colour photos of all the orchids that he found too, for anybody that wants to discover any of these spectacular plants for themselves. For someone so young, Bersweden has an impressive and clear style already and writes about his passion with infectious enthusiasm. There are brief reflections through his personal life, his anxieties and hopes as he formulates the direction that he wants to take with his life after his orchid challenge. It is too a stark reminder of just how perilous the existence of these plants actually is, half of them are on the UK endangered list and the spectres of climate change and intensive farming are having irreversible effects on the habitat. Definitely one for the plant lovers out there and also one for those who have a wider interest in our native ecology.