Editing Nero Wolfe (section)

===Orchids===
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| image1    = Wolfe-NWM-Orchid.jpg
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| caption1  = Silk orchid prop from A&E TV's ''[[Nero Wolfe (2001 TV series)|Nero Wolfe]]''
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| caption2  = ''[[Phalaenopsis]]'' hybrid
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{{blockquote|Wolfe had once remarked to me that the orchids were his concubines: insipid, expensive, parasitic and temperamental. He brought them, in their diverse forms and colors, to the limits of their perfection, and then gave them away; he had never sold one.|Archie Goodwin in ''[[The League of Frightened Men]]'' (1935), chapter 2}}
Known for rigidly maintaining his personal schedule, Nero Wolfe is most inflexible when it comes to his routine in the rooftop plant rooms. Ever day except Sunday, from 9:00 to 11:00 in the morning, and from 4:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon, he looks after his orchid collection alongside his employee Theodore Horstmann, the "best orchid nurse alive".  (Horstmann himself is said to spend up to 12 hours a day in the plant rooms.)

"Wolfe spends four hours a day with his orchids. Clients must accommodate themselves to this schedule", wrote Rex Stout's biographer John J. McAleer. "Rex does not use the orchid schedule to gloss over gummy plotting. Like the disciplines the sonneteer is bound by, the schedule is part of the framework he is committed to work within. The orchids and the orchid rooms sometimes are focal points in the stories. They are never irrelevant. In forty years Wolfe has scarcely ever shortened an orchid schedule."<ref name="McAleer"/>{{Rp|445|date=October 2013}}

"A dilly it was, this greenhouse", wrote Dr. John H. Vandermeulen in the ''[[American Orchid Society]] Bulletin''.

<blockquote>Entering from the stairs via a vestibule, there were three main rooms—one for [[cattleya]]s, [[laelia]]s, and hybrids; one for [[odontoglossum]]s, [[oncidium]]s, [[miltonia]]s, and their hybrids; and a tropical room (according to ''[[Fer-de-Lance (novel)|Fer-de-Lance]]''). It must have been quite a sight with the angle-iron staging gleaming in its silver paint and on the concrete benches and shelves 10,000 pots of orchids in glorious, exultant bloom.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Vandermeulen |first=Dr. John H. |date=February 1985 |title=Nero Wolfe—Orchidist Extraordinaire |journal=American Orchid Society Bulletin |publisher=[[American Orchid Society]] |volume=43 |issue=2 |page=143 }}</ref></blockquote>

"If Wolfe had a favorite orchid, it would be the [[genus]] [[Phalaenopsis]]", Robert M. Hamilton wrote in his article, "The Orchidology of Nero Wolfe", first printed in ''[[The Wolfe Pack#Publications|The Gazette: Journal of the Wolfe Pack]]'' (Volume 1, Spring 1979). Phalaenopsis is mentioned in 11 Wolfe stories, and [[Phalaenopsis aphrodite|Phalaenopsis Aphrodite]] is named in seven—more than any other species.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gotwald |first=Rev. Frederick G. |date=1992 |orig-year=1983 |title=The Nero Wolfe Handbook |location=Salisbury, North Carolina |publisher=F. G. Gotwald |pages=84–85 |oclc= 22780318}}</ref>{{efn|Robert M. Hamilton lists all of the orchids mentioned in Archie's accounts in alphabetical order. He records Phalaenopsis Aphrodite appearing in "[[Door to Death]]", ''[[The Golden Spiders]]'', ''[[Plot It Yourself]]'', "[[Poison à la Carte]]", ''[[A Right to Die]]'', ''[[The Doorbell Rang]]'' and ''[[The Father Hunt]]''.}} Wolfe personally cuts his most treasured Phalaenopsis Aphrodite for the centerpiece at the dinner for the Ten for [[Aristology]] in "[[Poison à la Carte]]". In ''[[The Father Hunt]]'', after Dorothy Sebor provides the information that solves the case, Wolfe tells Archie, "We'll send her some sprays of Phalaenopsis Aphrodite. They have never been finer."<ref>"[[Poison à la Carte]]", chapter 2; ''[[The Father Hunt]]'', chapter 13.</ref>

In the earlier works, Wolfe doesn't sell his orchids -- "I do not sell orchids", Wolfe tells Archie in chapter 7 of ''[[Murder by the Book]]'' (1951).  In ''[[The Silent Speaker]]'' (1946), Wolfe complains to Archie about the difficulty of the case, saying "I was an ass to undertake it. I have more Cattleyas than I have room for, and I could have sold five hundred of them for twelve thousand dollars."  However, he does give them away. Four or five dozen are used to advance the investigation in ''[[Murder by the Book]]'', and Wolfe refuses to let Archie bill the client for them. In ''[[The Final Deduction]]'', [[Sophronitis purpurata|Laelia purpurata]] and [[Dendrobium chrysotoxum]] are sent to Dr. Vollmer and his assistant, who shelter Wolfe and Archie when they have to flee the brownstone to avoid the police.<ref>''[[The Final Deduction]]'', chapter 6.</ref>  As the series progresses, Wolfe seems to be more comfortable selling his orchids.  In 1957's ''[[If Death Ever Slept]]'' (chapter 11), Archie describes Wolfe as "a practicing private detective with no other source of income except selling a few orchid plants now and then".  By the time of Stout's short 1963 piece "Why Nero Wolfe Likes Orchids", Archie notes that Wolfe "hasn't bought a plant from a commercial grower for 10 years, but he sells some -- a hundred or more a year."

In ''[[The Second Confession]]'', the orchid rooms are torn apart by gunfire from across the street. The shooters are in the employ of crime boss [[Nero Wolfe supporting characters#Arnold Zeck|Arnold Zeck]], who wants Wolfe to drop a case that could lead back to him. Wolfe and Archie call men to take care of the plants and repair the windows before notifying the police.<ref>''[[The Second Confession]]'', chapter 5.</ref>