Endangered Orchids

Endangered Orchids
The orchid’s popularity has had some unfortunate effects. When the Victorians discovered the beauty of these plants, a huge demand was created.

Since there weren’t any orchid nurseries with modern propagation facilities, plants had to be collected from the wild.

Orchid sellers sponsored plant hunters on expeditions throughout the world.

These plant hunters were good – too good – at their jobs, sending back shipments weighing tons and containing thousands of plants.

When one of these botanical conquistadors found a valuable species, he took every plant he could find, wreaking ecological havoc.

More over, only a small fraction of the plants collected survived.

Countless species became extinct.

Although the number of orchids removed from wilds for collectors has diminished since Victorian orchid boom, we still find collected orchids for sale.

• We can discourage the gathering of will orchids and their exploitation by purchasing only plants known to have been propagated by legitimate orchid growers.
  
  Be careful of the advertisements, offering orchids described with the words “wild” and “bare root.”
  
• The greatest danger to wild orchids is habitat destruction, which destroys all orchids, not just the prettiest.
  

It is estimated that billions of orchids are destroyed yearly by land clearing operations.
Endangered Orchids