Nero Wolfe cherished his 10,000 orchids with stifling love and affection.

Rex Stoute’s fictional, corpulent, private detective insisted on spending four hours daily locked in a sealed, climate-controlled room at his New York brownstone with the beloved collection he spent many years assembling.

Wild orchids also inspire such loyalty among collectors who thankfully no longer dig up and re-locate their targets but photograph them instead.

Wild Things: Another blow for local wildlife

They can be found almost anywhere in summer from roadside verges to woodland edges and sunlit fields where grass is left uncut. Several orchid varieties grow on the gentle slopes of Cuckoo Wood at Bromley’s High Elms Country Park.

Princeton have produced a superb new identification guide covering all 51 native species plus a dozen of uncertain origin and some hybrids. Britain's Orchids claims to be the first book covering all growth stages from seed to bloom and contains more than 1,200 stunning photographs highlighting key identification features.

Orchids have long fired the imagination with their beauty and rarity. This book will ignite or increase passion for these special plants, and for the conservation of their varied habitats – from remote mountaintops to urban wild spaces and gardens.

Wild Things: One of nature's greatest wonders

The importance of habitats like these is underlined by another offering from the same publisher. Britain’s Habitats appears in a timely revised second edition field guide format discussing topical subjects like climate change and rewilding. It’s virtually a natural history of Britain through the ages with information on all main habitat types from coast to moorland, woods to marshes and heath to mountains plus the wildlife present in each. A new section on gardens reveals that a Leicester woman recorded 2,600 species of animals and plants in her modest suburban plot over 30 years including 20 insect species new to Britain. The book also features 900 colour photographs of habitat and their inhabitants to enthrall wildlife enthusiasts.

Both these books are welcome additions to a series of high quality publications offering some of the most insightful and up-to-date information on British natural history.

Britain’s Orchids by Sean Cole and Mike Waller Price £20. Britain’s Habitats by Sophie Lake, Durwyn Liley, Robert Still and Andy Swash Price £25. Both published by Princeton WildGuides.