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|summary=One in seven flowering plants on earth is an orchid: there are 26,000 species in 749 genera. They flourish in remarkable habitats such as deserts and the Arctic circle, in fact all areas but the most inhospitable. There's a wide range of colours, shapes and scents: they're dramatic, delicate and ingenious in the ways that they've developed not just to survive but to thrive. Tom Mirenda describes them as ''masters of manipulation'' and ''famous for lying and cheating their way to their many evolutionary successes'', yet his love of the them is as obvious as his respect for the insight they give us into the processes which shaped our world. He hopes that understanding how that has come about will inspire us to conserve what we have.