The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean

Author:Susan Orlean [Orlean, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Science, Gardening, Nonfiction, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780307795298
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1998-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Plant Crimes

Plants disappear all the time in south Florida. So do most other living things. One day after my trip to Kerry’s Bromeliads, after all the Elaines had disappeared, The Miami Herald reported that frog poachers were hard at work in the Big Cypress Swamp near the Fakahatchee, and that they were poaching two tons of Everglades pig frogs out of the swamp every month. This would yield approximately one and a half tons of legs for cooking. A few of the poachers were interviewed while they sat in their frogging camp one night skinning their catch. They said that except for all the slime involved, frog hunting was a good way to make a living. On the other hand, bell peppers are not a good way to make a living—a neighbor of Tom Fennell’s had twenty thousand dollars’ worth of them stolen out of his fields. He was so incensed that he pulled up every last one of his remaining peppers and said he would never grow them again.

Laroche had a lot of company as a plant poacher. In fact, plant crimes showed up all the time in the Miami police blotter between the usual reports of assaults and stickups and stolen vehicles. That winter, instead of collecting plants, I began to collect news of plant crimes:

FEBRUARY 6, 1992 — Burglars attempted to enter a home in the 6500 block of West 27th Court sometime over the weekend but couldn’t open the front door. Instead, they cut open a rear screen and stole eight orchids.

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