Book excerpt: Over the past ten years, the orchid industry has been growing at a steady pace in South-East Asia and East Asia. In some Asian countries, orchids have become an essential export item. To maintain this progress, there is an urgent need for a book that will help the region's orchid growers in improving their cultivation and management skills, and guide new students in understanding orchid physiology. This book provides a comprehensive description of tropical orchid physiology relevant to commercial growers, research workers and graduate students. An integrated and unifying theme of tropical orchid physiology, with a clearly written factual text as well as illustrations, is presented over nine chapters. Each chapter is designed to provide comprehensive and up-to-date information on a particular aspect of orchid physiology. This book complements the existing scientific literature available for improving orchid cultivation and setting a new research agenda, especially in the tropics.