{"id":4910,"date":"2010-09-27T21:18:18","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T05:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/?p=4910"},"modified":"2011-07-30T20:17:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-31T04:17:29","slug":"orchids-past-and-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/27\/orchids-past-and-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Orchids, Past and Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Orchids are providing a valuable perspective on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/dn9903-instant-expert-climate-change.html\" target=\"_blank\">climate change<\/a>. Dried flowers are kept in museums and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Herbarium\" target=\"_blank\">herbaria<\/a> around the globe, and include records of collection dates. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2010\/09\/pressed-plants\/\" target=\"_blank\">A British group of scientists checked specimens up to 150 years old<\/a>, and found that the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ophrys_sphegodes\" target=\"_blank\">Early Spider Orchid<\/a>, native to southern and western Europe, has been blooming 6 days earlier for every 1.8\u00b0 F (1\u00b0 C) spring temperature increase. This rate corresponds to modern scientific observations in the field. Some dried flower specimens date back 250 years, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-11377192\" target=\"_blank\">they add a considerable repository of data for scientific study<\/a>. Climate change and shifting temperatures endanger orchids because of increased chances of extreme weather, and also the chance that orchids will flower out of sync with their pollinators.<\/p>\n<p>While scientists are finding orchids from the past useful, they&#8217;re also planning for the future. Climate change, habitat destruction, and over-collection all endanger wild orchid species. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/environment\/conservation\/orchid-seeds-in-deep-freeze-20100921-15ktv.html\" target=\"_blank\">Scientists from around the world recently met in Costa Rica to plan to freeze the orchid seeds of threatened species.<\/a> As a last-ditch effort , <a href=\"http:\/\/osssu.org\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Orchid Seed Stores for Sustainable Use (OSSSU)<\/a> hopes to build seed banks around the world to prevent the complete extinction of these marvelous plants. Since orchid seeds are minuscule, they don&#8217;t even need big freezers. Seeds frozen at -4\u00b0 F (-20\u00b0 C) can last for decades. Some seeds can be used to replenish struggling wild populations. It&#8217;s good to know that smart people are working to keep rare orchids from disappearing forever. Future generations should be able to enjoy more than a dried or frozen <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/identify\/orchids\/phalaenopsis.html\">Phal<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/identify\/orchids\/paphiopedilum.html\">Lady Slipper<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Orchids are providing a valuable perspective on climate change. Dried flowers are kept in museums and herbaria around the globe, and include records of collection dates. A British group of scientists checked specimens up to 150 years old, and found that the Early Spider Orchid, native to southern and western Europe, has been blooming 6 [&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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservation","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910","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=4910"}],"version-history":[{"count":62,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9420,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910\/revisions\/9420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}