It was during a walk near Radley Lakes with my friends Jo and Chris that I first suddenly took notice of the isolated curious brown stalks with the odd curling bits all around their tops. We had been stooping our way through what was once a water meadow but of more recent use as a potash disposal area, examining the assorted flora and fauna that clearly had a decided preference for staying low to the ground, when these spindly tall, decidedly withering brown spikes suddenly began to become more numerous. “The orchids have certainly finished blooming this year” I recall Jo saying, to which I replied something at least similar to, if not exactly “Orchids? What orchids?” And so it was that my eyes were opened to the fascinating world of British orchids – albeit in perhaps at not the most picturesque moment of their life cycle.

Before this awakening I had, like many others, no doubt, thought of orchids as rarified tropical flowers found only deep in the rainforest or the meticulously climate controlled greenhouses of equally meticulous aficionados. Orchids were delicate, subtle, obscure plants – certainly not the sort to muck-in with a host of common species hardy enough to withstand a British winter, or British “summer” for that matter. Yet as my initial encounter with them, and subsequent reading of Jon Dunn’s brilliantly written Orchid Summer, clearly taught me, British orchids are anything but delicate hot-house flowers.

Take the English name orchid for example. Derived from the Latin orchis, which itself is from the Ancient Greek ὄρχις, meaning “testicle,” British orchids are anything but demure – in fact, the one thing they’re all about is sex. From their blooms’ sometimes – shall we say “unusual” – scents (old billy goat, for example) to the evolutionary adaptation that has selected for the labella of others to be shaped like bees or flies in order to attract amorous insects of particular species to land upon them with lustful intent in order to fulfill the orchid’s purpose of sexually-deceptive pollination (let the full meaning of that settle in for a moment…) these flowers are most certainly anything but delicate in regard to what they’re all about.

So aside from their being among the most pornographic of the planet’s plant life, just what is it about orchids that causes people to become so enthralled with them; enthralled to the degree that a person would devote all free time, considerable effort, and not insignificant expense to traveling hither and yon, an hither again across the British Isles solely for the purpose of seeing representatives of each member of the taxonomic family to be found there? When I first took up Mr. Dunn’s book, I was absolutely mystified at what the allure could possibly be; however by the end of my reading of it, I had reached the point where my answer to the question was “Well why wouldn’t you, given the chance, want to take up such a quest?” The only problem is that I still can’t explain in any simple way just what it is that built the bridge from one shore to the other.

The deeper I read into Orchid Summer, the more enthralled, entranced, perhaps even enraptured I found myself becoming with these often admittedly odd plants. As I am normally, much to my chagrin, thousands of miles from “dear old Blighty,” I couldn’t exactly ramble out into a nearby field for a quick look at one whenever Mr. Dunn mentioned it in his narrative. Therefore I sought out a copy of Anne & Simon Harrap’s Orchids of Britain and Ireland; A Field and Site Guide for a ready-to-hand reference for all the species named. Not that Mr. Dunn’s prose is in any way insufficient to bring a vivid mental image of each species he describes into clear focus; it’s more that the unusual shapes, colors, and configurations British orchids take on can make anyone unfamiliar with them stop and think “No, that can’t possibly be… I must have read the description incorrectly.” A quick glance at Harrap & Harrap told me unequivocally that Mr Dunn’s descriptions were spot on each and every time.

But Orchid Summer is more than just the story of one man’s half-mad search, entertaining as the recounting of such may be, and indeed was, for fifty-odd (the total number of species in the region is a bit less than agreed-upon by authorities), sometimes mind-bendingly difficult to locate orchid species; it’s a tapestry of interwoven botanical lore, biographical sketches, and other natural history marginalia that truly brings the reason these plants have been the impetus for such unquenchable passion among botanists and other naturalists for centuries.

This is a story for which each individual part taken alone is a tale of – variously – curiosity, enlightenment, jocularity, and in one particular case, outright terror; yet assembled as a whole it is a vividly beautiful tapestry that depicts in a way that no simple explanation possibly could the astonishing power orchids have had, and continue to have over the hearts and minds of those who have, though a variety of different pathways, found their lives able to be divided into a time before they knew of orchids and a time after which they first became aware of them.

John Dunn’s Orchid Summer is an absolute delight and I give it my highest recommendation for all, for truly, there is in its pages something for everyone, regardless of any previous familiarity with orchids, or even botany for that matter. Mr. Dunn’s enthusiasm for his subject is both infectious as well as the fount of his ability to make the book come alive. He doesn’t merely tell his tale, he invites his readers to join him in reliving not only his own adventures in search of orchids but the adventures of orchidophiles, botanists, and other naturalists from days-gone-by as well. But be warned; Orchid Summer is most certainly one of those special books that may very well bring out significant behavioral changes in its readers, particularly in regard to the amount of time spent with eyes focused on the ground, searching out the sometimes cryptic, often diminutive, and occasionally improbably, even outlandishly, colored signs of the remarkable and diverse plants that are the world’s orchids.

Title: Orchid Summer; In Search of the Wildest Flowers of the British Isles

Author: Jon Dunn

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 384 pp.

ISBN: 9781408880883

Published: March 2018

In accordance with Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR Part 255, it is disclosed that the copy of the book read in order to produce this review was provided gratis to the reviewer by the publisher.