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SUMMARY:Cunning\, killer orchids - Jim Endersby (University of Sussex)
DTSTART:20160225T153000Z
DTEND:20160225T170000Z
UID:TALK63504@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Marta Halina
DESCRIPTION:At the end of the nineteenth century\, orchids were among the 
 most desirable\, collectable and exotic flowers to grace British greenhous
 es\, but despite the hours spent watering and tending to them\, they turne
 d on their keepers and started trying to kill those who grew them. The fir
 st victim was a Mr Winter-Wedderburn\, who almost died when a vampiric orc
 hid tried to drain every drop of blood from his body\; only his quick-thin
 king housekeeper's intervention saved him. Others were not so lucky\, and 
 the list of fatalities grew slowly but steadily during the next few decade
 s. Fortunately\, these attacks only occurred in fiction (Mr Winter-Wedderb
 urn was a character in a short story by H.G. Wells)\, yet they present a c
 urious puzzle for historians. Orchids were to become deadly\, sexy\, mobil
 e and – most noticeably – increasingly cunning over the next few decad
 es. To understand why\, we need to trace the 'killer orchid' genre back\, 
 via popularisations of Darwin's botany\, to a mystery that Darwin was unab
 le to solve\; why some orchids mimic insects. The solution was only found 
 in the twentieth century\, and I will argue that the fictitious orchids fo
 rmed a crucial link in this discovery.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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