Archive for the 'Conservation' Category
Friday, April 14th, 2023
In this age of habitat destruction, poaching of wild plants, climate change, and pollution, extinction is tragically frequent. However, it can be difficult to know if a species has actually disappeared. For example, nobody has seen the small white flowers of the Everglades Orchid, Govenia floridana, since 1964. Vida Svahnström is an orchid scientist and […]
Categories: Conservation, In the News
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Monday, March 27th, 2023
Vanilla is a very delicious orchid, and the most important orchid crop. The Crop Trust, a non-profit group which works to safeguard crop diversity, wants to protect vanilla. Native to Central and South America, it was cultivated for millennia by Mayans and Aztecs. Nowadays, most beans come from Madagascar, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, India, and […]
Categories: Conservation, In the News
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Tuesday, March 14th, 2023
The Guardian reports on the New York Botanical Garden’s (NYBG) latest big exhibition, and also its efforts to rescue endangered orchids. Behind the scenes, there are orchids salvaged from the illegal plant trade. When stolen species are confiscated by customs officials, they are sent to botanical gardens like NYBG to be saved. The plants are […]
Categories: Botanical Gardens, Conservation, In the News
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Sunday, January 22nd, 2023
Nestled in the towering Himalayas between India and China, Nepal is an orchid hotspot. Sadly, its orchids are declining. Even though Nepal is only slightly bigger than Arkansas, it’s home to about 500 orchid species (for comparison, the USA and Canada combined have about 200 species.) People collect wild orchids to sell for use in […]
Categories: Conservation, In the News
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Sunday, January 15th, 2023
Take a mind-blowing vacation and help endangered orchids at the same time! The Orchid Conservation Alliance (OCA) offers Orchids in the Wild Ecotours, expert-led trips to see orchids in their native homes. They range as far away as Madagascar, and as close as Ohio. This year’s itinerary also includes Italy, Brazil, and South Africa. The […]
Categories: Conservation, Misc, Orchids in the Wild
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Tuesday, December 27th, 2022
Massey University student Hayden Jones and Botany Curator Carlos Lehnebach are launching a citizen-science project to solve an orchid mystery. Maikuku, also known as the White Sun Orchid or Thelymitra longifolia, is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most common orchids. Although it was scientifically discovered 250 years ago, botanists wonder if its beautiful white blooms […]
Categories: Conservation, Cool Growers, In the News
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Friday, October 21st, 2022
Dogs are helping orchids. The North American Orchid Conservation Center has two projects where dogs are working to save endangered species (the article is in the middle of their newsletter.) With their keen sense of smell, specially trained hounds have learned to identify the orchids from dried specimens. They can locate wild plants when they’re […]
Categories: Conservation, In the News
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Friday, October 14th, 2022
India is home to over 1,250 native orchid species. As is the case in many countries, those orchids are threatened by overharvesting of wild plants. To improve enforcement of India’s laws, a new poster has been created by the World Wildlife Fund and TRAFFIC, a registered UK charity which works to stop illegal wildlife trade. […]
Categories: Conservation, In the News
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Tuesday, September 27th, 2022
The Swamp Helmet Orchid, Corybas carsei, is the tiniest and rarest Corybas orchid in New Zealand. There are only a few hundred remaining in a very small patch of land within their wetland homes. Fortunately, scientists have joined forces to save them. The Department of Conservation has been working for decades to protect the endangered […]
Categories: Conservation, In the News
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Thursday, September 8th, 2022
Florida’s ongoing Million Orchid Project has been succeeding. Community groups, schools, and businesses, like the Lehigh Acres company highlighted in the news story below, are tying native orchids to trees. They hope to restore some of the state’s lost natural beauty, missing due to decades of habitat destruction and poaching. Run by Fairchild Tropical Botanic […]
Categories: Conservation, In the News, Videos
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