The one-paragraph summary

In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the gentlemen of the Royal Horticultural Society wage war with gloves, calling cards, and ruinous expenditures. Rare orchids, monstrous lilies, and exotic ferns have become weapons in a struggle for prestige. Among the most ruthless competitors is Lord Alistair Wren, Viscount Harrowgate—a man whose passion for botany long ago curdled into monomania. He has learned of a plant so extraordinary that it would eclipse every rival acquisition: a carnivorous specimen hidden deep within the jungles of British Guiana, a thing recorded only once in a forgotten Dutch botanical treatise. Unknown to most, Wren’s interest is not scientific. He seeks vengeance against the very society that once mocked him, and he is prepared to pay any price.