AboutOrchids

Illinois College biologists are bringing some rare orchids home to Hawaii. Like I blogged last May, this Platanthera species, also known as the Fringed Orchid, is one of the few true island natives, and it’s endangered. Habitat destruction, invasive plants and animals, and theft from the wild have severely reduced the wild population. In 1992, Hurricane Iniki almost wiped out all the Fringed Orchids on Kauai. Only one remains there, with a few dozen more on Maui and Molokai. Illinois College and the National Tropical Botanical Garden have been collaborating to grow them and return them to the wild. This weekend, they’ll plant about 90 seedlings from an Illinois lab back in their native Hawaiian habitats. While celebrating this success, Chipper Wichman, director of Kauai’s National Tropical Botanical Garden, added that “This does not ensure the survival of this species. What this does is it gives us a huge step forward.”

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Conservation, In the News.

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