The Amazon is among the world's richest sources of native orchids. For many, the orchid symbolizes the beauty and fragility of the rainforest. Surprisingly, these plants are amazingly tough and can survive drying out and heat typical of the upper canopy where most species occur. Orchids (Orchidaceae) comprise the most diverse family of plants, with over 25,000 described species, while many more undoubtedly remain to be discovered.

Orchidelirium is the name that the Victorians gave to the flower madness. For botanical collectors in the 19th century Englnd, it was the equivalent of gold fever. Wealthy orchid fanatics of that era sent explorers, heavily armed, more to protect themselves against other orchid seekers than against hostile natives or wild animals, to unmapped territories in search of new varieties of Cattleya and Paphiopedilum. As knowledge of the Orchid family grew to encompass more than 20,000 species and over 100,000 hybrids, orchidelirium, like the Dutch tulip mania before it, became history.