No bigger than a speck of dust, an orchid seed seems like a fragile thing. Yet, under the right conditions, this tiny grain—among the smallest from any flowering plant—can survive in the wild for years, eventually germinating and producing one of botany’s most exquisite blooms.

Photographer Dornith Doherty has spent 10 years capturing the beauty of thousands of seed varieties for a project that she calls Archiving Eden. But orchids, she says, are special.

“They’re delicate and vulnerable, yet they have this power of life,” she says. “I find them magical.”

Doherty began researching her project after a magazine article about a seed bank in Svalbard, Norway, sparked her curiosity. The story highlighted the importance of stockpiling seeds should climate change,