ORCHIDS IN HAWAI'I, BY TED GREEN, MUTUAL PUBLISHING, PAPER, $10.95

It's a book for newcomers to the field, a primer with useful information on the history of some orchids, where to find them in the wild and in botanical gardens, where to see them at shows, where to buy them, how to grow them and how to make sense of their complex scientific names.

It hits the best known orchids with dozens upon dozens of excellent color photographs, but doesn't pretend to cover them all. Green says there are more than 35,000 species of orchids, more than 120,000 hybrids, and hundreds more hybrids added each year.

The orchids you see in lei and growing in people's yards are all from stock that has been imported, as are all the blooms that form the basis of the state's orchid growing industry.

The Hawaiian archipelago has three native orchids, but they're rare and you're unlikely to come across them except in high, wet forests. One, Liparis hawaiensis or 'awapuhiakanaloa, has tiny green flowers. The Platanthera holochila, or fringed orchid, has miniscule blooms, and the Anoectochilus sandvicensis, or jewel orchid, has tiny yellow ones, sometimes with a red dot.

Green says ones you're most likely to see in the wild are the bamboo orchid, Philippine ground orchid, nun's orchid and the reed-stemmed epidendrum. His book has photos of each.