Orchid seeds grow slowly. Sometimes they take months to develop inside the seedpods. The very small seedpods contain as many as three thousand seeds. The seeds float in the air when the pods break open. But they do not begin growing just anywhere.
STEVE EMBER: The seeds need to be near what is called a mycorrhizal fungus. The seeds lack nutrients, and the fungus feeds them. But the fungus is rare, and some of its habitats are threatened.
Thomas Mirenda is an orchid collection specialist at the Smithsonian Institution. Mister Mirenda says orchids growing in nature depend completely on their environment to survive.
Human development or natural disasters can change that environment. The orchids cannot reproduce if birds and insects are no longer living in the area. He says loss of forests and climate change are part of the problem.
Mister Mirenda also says very little money is available to help orchid conservation. He says financing is seriously endangered, like the orchids themselves.
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BARBARA KLEIN: Today, science and technology can produce orchids in large numbers in greenhouse settings. In nineteen seventeen, Cornell University scientist Lewis Knudsen found that under certain conditions, the fungus was not needed. He discovered that seeds or spores could grow if the seed could develop in a special preparation. The preparation had a sugar base and was similar to gelatin, a food product. The method was put into use a few years later in greenhouses.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25