Our March meeting was held in Longwick Village Hall and we were treated to a wonderful talk by Professor Sandy Primrose, the well-known biologist, lecturer, keen gardener and consultant in the pharmaceutical and health care fields. He described, with superb pictures and amusing anecdotes, how exotic orchids had been worshipped by emperors and how orchid mania swept through Victorian England. Men with no interest in plants became obsessed when they first saw orchids and paid plant hunters to go on dangerous expeditions, in order to be the first to obtain particular rare plants. Huge sums of money changed hands and rivalry between orchid collectors sometimes resulted in murder. A fascinating talk.
