Reported by John Platt in Scientific American online here, a single flowering plant of the terrestrial lady slipper orchid Cypripedium calceolus still lives in the wild in Lancashire UK.
The plant is under police protection. The plant is reported to be 100 yrs. old.
I would love to see an orchid living wild here in N. America. Orchids truly are survivor plants.
Oh it's a stunning bloom. It is so poetic. It looks like an infant being cradled by flame. So delicate.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe people sometimes. It is rare. Rare means "leave it the hell alone!"
Beautiful exceptional things are always under attack in this world. I'm glad the British are taking serious measures to protect it.
They hopefully have taken some samples too to be able to grow more of them. Do they do that? Kind of like the way they do gene therapy and breeding programs for at risk animal species?
I hope so... its fragile and lovely and it would be a shame to lose it.
Great post.
xoxo
Lori