Advancements in the Symbiotic Culture of Native Orchid Species

Growing native orchids from seed is a challenging and long-term task with many research opportunities. Symbiotic germination, where orchid seeds are inoculated onto an actively growing culture of known orchid mycorrhizal fungi (OMF), is the primary way to ensure that laboratory propagated orchid seedlings establish a fungal relationship. Despite reports on increased and faster germination […]

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Putting Magnify In Magnificent 🧐

To appreciate the scale of this endeavor, the leaf in this shot is about the size of your thumbnail! Cute as a button, you’ll need a hand lens to appreciate the flower of Lepanthes rupestris. This orchid native to Puerto Rico was recently collected and seed banked at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. […]

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Orchid Micropropagation

Screenshot of Atlanta Botanic Garden's video on orchid propagation

Micropropagation is an effective conservation tool for producing tissue clones or for germinating spore or seed in vitro. Orchids are known to be quite difficult to propagate as they typically require fungal symbionts during their germination. In this video, Jason Ligon and Tito Tomei explain how to propagate orchids in the lab using sterile micropropagation […]

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Canopy Thinning and Death Impacts Growth and Reproduction of Isotria medeoloides – a Federally Threatened orchid

Screenshot of Canopy Thinning and Death Impacts Growth and Reproduction of Isotria medeoloides - a Federally Threatened orchid video

Dennis Whigham, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Long-term monitoring of Isotria medeoloides at two sites in Virginia have been combined with observations from an understory thinning experiment at one site and death of a large canopy tree at a second site. New plants emerged at both sites following increased light levels and flowering and fruit production increased. […]

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Why Cryopreservation Methods Are Important to Endangered Native Plants

Cryopreservation, a method of storing tissues in liquid nitrogen, is becoming increasingly important to rare plant conservation. This is because many plant species, including large groups such as oaks, orchids, and bryophytes, are unable to be stored long term using more traditional seed banking methods. Using cryopreservation techniques, researchers are able to preserve greater crop […]

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Collecting and Working with Orchid Seeds

Screenshot of Collecting and Working with Orchid Seeds video.

David Remucal, University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum While many seedbanks avoid working with orchids, more groups are taking them on, or collecting them for groups that are. Collecting rules and protocols are not different for orchids but there are enough complexities in their biology to intimidate collectors new to orchids. Orchid seeds are the smallest in […]

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Creating High Impact Educational Videos with Low Tech Tools

Joe Davit in a CPC Rare Plant Academy video on how to make professional looking videos using a smart phone.

Joe Davitt, San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research In this video, Joe outlines the process for making short informative videos using commonly available technological resources such as your smart phone. He describes the tools available to CPC Network members seeking to create content for CPC Rare Plant Academy or our upcoming online course series, […]

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Cryopreservation: An Approach for Long-term Storage of Phyto-diversity Plants of North-East India

Screenshot of Cryopreservation: An Approach for Long-term Storage of Phyto-diversity Plants of North-East India video

Meera Das*, Reema Diengdoh, Seram Devika, Suman Kumaria, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India, *Speaker North-east India, being one of the global hot-spots, is considered the richest reservoir of diverse plant genetic resources. However, the vast utilities of plant species in medicines, ornamentals, fragrances, urbanization and illegitimate harvest of plant genetic resources have immense impact on […]

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NAOCC’s Collaborative Orchid Seed Storage Project

Screenshot from NAOCC's Collaborative Orchid Seed Storage Project video

Dennis Whigham and Julianne McGuinness, North American Orchid Conservation Center The North American Orchid Conservation Center (NAOCC) was developed by the Smithsonian and the U.S. Botanic Garden to conserve the diversity of native orchids in the U.S. and Canada. NAOCC ecologically-based conservation model has three guiding principles: Preservation through seed and fungal banks, Propagation, Education. NAOCC […]

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Growing a Database

Screenshot from Growing a Database video

David Remucal, University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum We have been struggling with a propagation database. This has been of particular interest as our orchid conservation program has grown, we have needed a way to track individual maternal sources or populations from seed to potted plant as they go through different treatments and use different media. […]

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