Description

The fascinating story of one mans mission to track down and rescue rare orchids from destruction on the building sites of Britain

Ben Jacob is an orchid thief He spends his life and risks prison tracking down rare orchids and rescuing them from unwitting destruction on the building sites and greenbelt developments of Britain This is his story

Ben fell in love with orchids as a nineyearold when his parents bought him a Cymbidium That love then led him to spend his twenties in various tropical cities teaching English and exploring jungles where exotic orchid species grew wild pollinated by hummingbirds huge moths and more After a decade abroad Ben returned to the UK Here his passion reignited when he encountered a colony of Bee orchids a cryptic species which tricks bees into mating with its flowers Ben was entranced Having long seen Britains orchids as pale imitations of their tropical cousins he changed his mind completely and set out to find and photograph all fiftyone British species

Reading and learning everything he could Ben realised that Britains orchids are in desperate trouble Some such as Summers Lady Tresses have gone extinct others such as the magnificently strange Ghost Orchid have not been seen since 2009 all have experienced vertiginous declines Changes in land use and climate are responsible but so too are Britains outdated environmental and planning laws which seem incapable of protecting rare species in the face of the drive to build new homes and infrastructure

Thats how Ben turned outlaw He began saving orchids slated for destruction digging them out in the middle of the night and replanting them in safe places all this while knowing that the work he was doing was illegal for if arrested Ben could have been fined 5000 for each wild orchid plant he saved and he might even have faced prison

Part memoir part fascinating history of our most exotic and yet overlooked flower this is nature writing with a real story Ben shares with us his mission and raises urgent questions about our environmental legislation

The world needs more Bens

P 2023 Hodder amp Stoughton Limited