For nine months in 2000, Tom Hart-Dyke was a captive of guerrillas who seized him while he was collecting wild orchids in the Colombian rain forest. Now Hart-Dyke is at it again in the most orchid-rich and politically unstable part of Papua New Guinea. NOVA investigates an all- consuming passion that for some people is more precious than life itself, on Orchid Hunter, airing Tuesday, November 26, 2002 at 8 PM ET on PBS (check local listings).  The companion web site, located at http://www.pbs.org/nova/orchids/, offers unique content including an Orchid Gallery where users can sample the surprising diversity of shapes and colors in this collection of 15 different orchid species. 

Ranging from the scientific to the sociological, Orchid Hunter covers research at the forefront of plant biology and gives insights from New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief— “a lesson in the dark, dangerous, sometimes hilarious nature of obsession,” according to USA Today, and an inspiration for the soon-to-be-released movie Adaptation, starring Meryl Streep and Nicolas Cage. 

Long of interest to scientists because of their remarkable evolutionary history, orchids are equally exciting to collectors, who have made them a multibillion-dollar industry. Orchid lovers were recently dazzled by the discovery of a spectacular new species in Peru. With a magenta and purple blossom as big as a human hand, the flower has plant breeders eagerly anticipating a lucrative new line of flashier-than-ever orchids. The dream of discovering and naming such a crowd-pleaser drives some enthusiasts to
desperate measures. 

“I know that it’s got political problems,” says tireless orchid hunter Hart Dyke about his latest destination, Papua New Guinea. “I know there’s a lot of guerrilla activity there; I know that the terrain is terrible, and the diseases are rife, but that’s why it’s such a good place to go. If you want to find a new species of orchid, you’ve got to go to places that are dangerous because no one else goes there.” 

Prime motivation for the twenty-five-year-old amateur botanist is the chance to make a discovery that he can name after his grandmother, who taught him on the family estate in England to love horticulture. NOVA accompanies Hart-Dyke on his quest, which he well knows has a tradition of gruesome outcomes.

In 1901 eight orchid hunters went on an expedition to the Philippines. Within a month one was eaten by a tiger, another was drenched with oil and burned alive, five vanished never to be seen again, and one walked out of the forest with seven thousand orchid specimens. More recently, a botanical party in Papua was held hostage by insurgents for four months, and two of their members were beheaded when the Indonesian army attempted a rescue. Orchids are one of the most ancient flowering plants; they evolved a survival strategy that dispersed them to every continent except Antarctica. 

They now number more than twenty-five thousand species, each with an intricate relationship to animal pollinators (usually insects) and fungi in the soil. Fungi supply both nutrients for the growing orchid and food for the seed, allowing the plants to survive in habitats with poor or even no soils.

This close relationship to insects and fungi makes orchids vulnerable to extinction, which is why Hart-Dyke’s first order of business on arriving in Papua is to hire a local forester with a permit to collect orchids. All wild orchids are protected by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). Hart-Dyke also enlists the services of Papua’s two leading orchid experts. Counting NOVA, that makes a party about the size of the ill-fated 1901 Philippine expedition. But then, one person survived that trip—and with a plethora of flower samples to boot. 

Among orchid addicts, that’s all that matters.
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