Latest news with #orchids
CNA
03-08-2025
- CNA
More than 6,000 orchids on display at Gardens by the Bay, making 60 years of nation building
More than 6,000 orchids are on display at Gardens by the Bay, marking 60 years of nation-building in Singapore. The country is also celebrating six decades of diplomatic ties with the Netherlands through a light show at the gardens.
The Guardian
31-07-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
‘I had no idea there was anything like this in the world!': meet the species recently discovered by scientists
It's not often that you discover a new species in your lunch spot. But for Lou Jost, co-founder and director of Fundación EcoMinga, that's exactly what happened. Everything from a new species of glass frog to a new mammal genus have been discovered on the Ecuadorian reserves that Fundación EcoMinga protects with funding from the conservation charity World Land Trust – but it all began with orchids. 'When you're sitting still, you observe things much more carefully,' says Jost. 'I saw all these leaves that I recognised as orchid leaves.' Turning them over, he found flowers that 'looked more like insects', counting five different orchid species without leaving his spot. 'It opened my eyes to the biodiversity of these orchids,' says Jost, and on a later hike to the same area, he spotted something strangely beautiful he'd never seen before – a brand new species. 'I named it Lepanthes elytrifera, which means 'carrying beetle wing covers', because the centre of the flower looks like a pair of shiny beetle wing covers.' But to Jost, who'd been fascinated with orchids since childhood, even growing a DIY rainforest in his basement, it was obvious that this new species was threatened. 'From where I was sitting, I could hear the sound of chainsaws.' Over the next decade, while Jost mapped out the patterns of orchid biodiversity, he felt an obligation to ensure the survival of these areas and their endemic species. He approached the local government and the body responsible for managing Ecuador's national parks, but 'kept running into brick walls'. So, in 2005, he and a group of Ecuadorian and international scientists and conservationists founded Fundación EcoMinga, with 'some small reserves and small donations'. But scaling up was an issue – until World Land Trust stepped in, when he approached it for funding to protect 2,000 hectares (4,900 acres) of vital habitat. 'Almost immediately, they agreed,' he says. World Land Trust has funded the protection of 29,036 hectares of land in Ecuador through its partners. EcoMinga alone manages 10 reserves in the upper Río Pastaza watershed, a biological corridor linking the northern and southern ranges of Ecuador's eastern Andes. There, it has discovered nearly 100 species, almost all of which are found nowhere else but the watershed. EcoMinga also manages two more reserves in the Chocó region of north-west Ecuador, and it is here that one of its recent mammalian discoveries took place. Rodents are often overlooked in science, says Jost. But Ecuadorian mammologist Jorge Brito knows only too well the hidden biodiversity they represent. Alongside EcoMinga's executive director, Javier Robayo, and 'highly trained, highly motivated guards from Baños de Agua Santa', Brito led an expedition to the Dracula reserve in the Chocó region, near the Colombian border, to investigate the amphibians, reptiles and mammals in the area. As a result of the expedition, the researchers identified a new species of rodent. 'We knew that what we found was probably a new species,' he says. But it was the morphology of its teeth that led the team to understand they had actually discovered a new rodent genus, Pattonimus. 'Even globally, that's quite rare.' Discoveries on World Land Trust-funded reserves include the Norma Ewing's rain frog, identified last year by EcoMinga's reserve manager, Juan Pablo Reyes-Puig,during a research expedition to Cerro Candelaria. And announced this year, the luminous green Maycú torrent frog, discovered where the Andes meets the Amazon in the Maycú reserve by a team of researchers. In 2020, the ethereal, translucent-skinned mindo glass frog was also rediscovered in EcoMinga's Rio Manduriacu reserve, seen just twice in the wild since it was first described in 1975. The reserve, originally intended to protect the critically endangered Tandayapa Andean toad, is now a breeding ground for these otherworldly creatures. Another is the scorpion species discovered during a community patrol by Asociación Ecológica de San Marcos de Ocotepeque in western Honduras, and named Centruroides lenca in honour of the Indigenous Lenca people. 'It is really hard to discover new species … but not as hard as I thought,' says Jost, recalling his favourite find on an expedition to a remote, little-studied mountain in the World Land Trust-protected Machay reserve. 'It's a very special mountain, very steep – almost nobody has ever been,' says Jost, who was ascending with a team when a guard named Darwin Riccardo came running with something in his hands. 'A big black frog with fluorescent dots all over it. Such a crazy frog. I had no idea there was anything like this in the world!' Riccardo had spotted it inside a bromelia plant. 'It still blows me away!' And as for the name of that thrilling spotted frog? Hyloscirtus sethmacfarlanei, named in honour of the actor Seth MacFarlane, who also works to halt the loss of rainforest habitat. 'You can do a lot with new species. They're attention-getters. There are actually websites that track things that are named after David Attenborough,' he says, adding that he, too, has named a plant after Attenborough, a World Land Trust patron – the Blakea attenboroughii. 'I often name species after people or communities,' says Jost, recalling how an orchid named after the city of Tulcán in Ecuador made the news. 'The city printed colourful children's books with pictures of all the fancy frogs, birds and plants, and the garbage collectors handed them out,' he says. Tulcán even painted its municipal vehicle to match. Sharing that curiosity and pride on a global scale could be a tonic for anyone feeling despondent about the loss of natural habitats. Jost insists there's room for optimism. 'Every significant ecosystem in the Río Pastaza watershed of Ecuador is now at least partly preserved by these reserves.' And EcoMinga's reserves are growing, protected rigorously by World Land Trust's Keepers of the Wild rangers. 'All of the World Land Trust's partners are an inspiration for the world. The diversity here is so high that you can't just pay attention to one area,' says Jost. 'You've got to have one decentralised system of partners focusing on different animals and plants and areas – and that's what World Land Trust does. And it's working.' You can support projects like the Rio Anzu Reserve by donating to the World Land Trust Action Fund – conservation where it's needed most
CNA
20-07-2025
- Business
- CNA
Orchid farms say buyers have halved since 2020, hope national events spur interest
Plant nurseries say local buyers of orchids have fallen by up to 50 per cent compared to five years ago. And they are counting on national events to boost the profile of the flower, which has long been associated with Singapore. The nation marks its 60th birthday this year, as well as the 10th anniversary of the inscription of the Singapore Botanic Gardens as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Eugene Chow with more, Sabrina Ng with reporting.
The Guardian
21-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Country diary: A bumper year for orchids – the meadow is brimming with them
Last month, we made a choice on the farm in the midst of the spring drought. The grass was going to seed, risking the quality and amount of hay we could produce. We decided to 'top' the meadows early and hope for rain rather than settling for a poor crop. So far, it's paying off. There has been rain, and the grass, stimulated by mowing, is at last swaying in the breeze. A late hay harvest now looks possible. The drought, paradoxically, has brought a benefit. The grasses, so often dominant, have been suppressed, giving wildflowers a head start. The grazing pastures are no longer monocultures. This year, as horses swish flies, the fields are full of oxeye daisies, creating a landscape as bucolic as an Alfred Munnings painting. Also paying off is my prediction of a bumper orchid year. Wading through the wildflower meadows, I find bee orchid after bee orchid. Each has a pale pink, three-petalled flower with what looks like a fuzzy brown and yellow bee resting on it. If this were southern Europe, a species called the long-horn bee would think this was a female, misled not just by appearance but by the mimicry of pheromones. He'd have a go at mating. Whether the male ever realises he's been tricked into 'pseudo-copulation' with a fake bee I don't know, but either way, he has pollinated the plant. In the UK, the long-horn is so rare that the bee orchids self-pollinate. Then I start finding pyramidal orchids everywhere in the meadow. On top of each long stem is a flower spike, packed full of tiny, delicate individual flowers. Each has that distinctive orchid shape, varying in colour from light pink to strong purple. These ones are such bright magenta they almost glow, and will be pollinated by long-tongued butterflies, and hawk moths, whose proboscis can reach 25mm long. I pick a handful of the sainfoin fronds – loved by horses, naturally anti-inflammatory and anti-parasitic – and return to the stables where the leaves are gratefully munched. In the eaves, the baby swallows are also open mouthed, gaping and calling as the parent swoops in with food. I found a chick dead on the ground this morning, but three remain, looking more ready to fledge each day. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
BBC News
18-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Wild orchid flourishing in woodland near Ardingly in West Sussex
A company creating "habitat banks", spaces designed to increase biodiversity, says it hopes that a rare orchid species found growing at its site in West Sussex will spread to neighbouring part of its work delivering habitat restoration in line with the government's Biodiversity Net Gain policy, Environment Bank manages a stretch of woodland near was there that a thriving population of early purple orchids, with links to both Shakespeare and Christianity, has been Dodds, associate ecologist at Environment Bank, has spoken glowingly about this "beautiful find". "They're quite strongly associated with ancient habitat bank that we have at Ardingly encompasses a small strip of ancient woodland and that's where we found the orchids," he told BBC Radio Dodds explained that the company created "colonisation points" in the hope of expanding this habitat is part of the wider aim of restoring habitats - in this case, an orchid which remains quite, albeit not "wildly", Bank's work is funded by the Biodiversity Net Gain policy which requires developers to achieve a 10% minimum biodiversity net gain on any Dodds said: "If the company can't deliver the biodiversity net gain on the site that they're developing, then we take the money from them and deliver habitats which are then secured for 30 years on our habitat banks."While rare in modern times, this orchid is mentioned in Shakespeare's Hamlet and also has an association with Christianity."They were believed to be the orchid that grew at the bottom of Christ's meant that they've got little spots on their leaves, and that was thought to be from the drops of blood from the crucifixion," added Mr Dodds.
