{"id":32084,"date":"2019-03-14T20:04:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T04:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/?p=32084"},"modified":"2019-03-20T07:54:14","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T15:54:14","slug":"the-secret-orchids-of-palau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/14\/the-secret-orchids-of-palau\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Orchids of Palau"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/blogs\/smithsonian-environmental-research-center\/2018\/08\/29\/secret-orchids-palau\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Smithsonian<\/em> magazine reveals the secret orchids of Palau.<\/a> The tiny South Pacific nation is spread across 344 small islands. With sun-drenched beaches and coral reefs full of vibrant fish, it&#8217;s known as one of the best dive sites in the world. But Palau is more than a biodiversity hotspot for fish. It&#8217;s also a hotspot for orchids. Palau&#8217;s forests hide over 90 species of colorful orchids, with varieties of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/07\/ground-orchids-bloom-in-tough-spots\/\">Spathoglottis<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/identify\/orchids\/dendrobium.html\">Dendrobium<\/a>, Bulbophyllum, and more.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, the people of Palau have done a great job taking care of their native forests. Orchids are abundant. &#8220;There would literally be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/17\/up-a-tree-2\/\">epiphytic<\/a> orchids that would cover the tree from the ground all the way up to where I couldn\u2019t even see them,\u201d said Smithsonian scientist Benjamin Crain. Some species inhabit the tropical forests, while others live on rockier, more barren islands. As researchers study Palau&#8217;s plants, they&#8217;re trying to ensure that the country remains an orchid hotspot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Smithsonian magazine reveals the secret orchids of Palau. The tiny South Pacific nation is spread across 344 small islands. With sun-drenched beaches and coral reefs full of vibrant fish, it&#8217;s known as one of the best dive sites in the world. But Palau is more than a biodiversity hotspot for fish. It&#8217;s also a hotspot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservation","category-in-the-news","category-warm-growers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32084"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32108,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32084\/revisions\/32108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}