A few years ago, I had the singular honor of having an orchid named for me—Spathoglottis Jane Goodall. It had been developed by a horticulturist at the Singapore Botanical Gardens where there is a small area set aside for hybrid orchids of this sort. Mostly they have been named for people like members of royal families, well-known movie stars, presidents, and so on. And now me!

Of course, I have always marveled at orchids—at their fantastic designs and colors and shapes and sizes. Yet there has always seemed something artificial and opulent about the hothouse orchids one finds in the houses of the wealthy. That day, walking through the orchid gardens in the warm Singaporean air, was different, for I was seeing these plants as nature intended, among the trees and rocks they acquired an almost mystical beauty. And there was a little hidden grove where every orchid had a delicate fragrance—I had never even realized that orchids could have a scent.

While I was in Australia in July 2006 I met Paul Scannell from the Albury Botanic Gardens in New South Wales, and Andrew Pritchard, threatened species project officer in the Department of Sustainability and Environment in Warrnambool, Victoria. I had been invited to a dinner at which Paul and Andrew’s organization, the Victorian Threatened Orchid Recovery Team (TORT), was given the prestigious Australian Environmental Banksia Award in the Land and Biodiversity section. A series of photographs illustrated their work. Both Paul and Andrew have been more than generous, sharing their knowledge and sparing their time.

Stealing Beauty
Many species of orchids are now threatened or endangered. This is partly due to habitat destruction, but partly, too, because orchids are so very beautiful and exotic in appearance that they have been overcollected for sale to the wealthy. “We have tragic historic records,” Paul told me, “showing that ladies used to win prizes at our local show in the 1940s with armfuls of these beautiful orchids.”

Paul has told me, during several long telephone calls, about his work with the crimson spider orchid (Caladenia concolor) that is found in the Box Gum Woodlands. This is a fragile environment now badly degraded, he said, as a result of “land clearing, trail bikes and four-wheel drives, deliberately lit fires, firewood and bush rock collecting, cattle breaking through fences—and twelve years of drought.”

Moreover, because so much damage has been done by humans, the balance of nature has been disturbed. A variety of native animals, themselves struggling to survive in the degraded habitat, are destroying the remaining orchids. The eastern gray kangaroos, swamp wallabies, and possums may eat an orchid’s single leaf; birds and echidnas may dig the plants up. It is hardly surprising that the orchids have become increasingly endangered. “Even our threatened species surveys can be threatening to the plants,” Paul said, “for however carefully we tread we cannot avoid compacting the soil and reducing the vegetation cover.”

There are only eighty or so known crimson spider orchids left in the world and only eighteen individuals in Paul’s area—seventeen when he began. He and his team are doing their best to conserve them in the wild while horticulturists struggle to find a way to propagate them off site. The problem with this, I have learned, is that their natural history is very complex.

Like many other orchid species, the crimson spider orchid must be pollinated by one particular species of thynnine wasp. Pollination occurs when a male wasp, attracted by an odor mimicking that of a female of his species, attempts to mate—and fly off with—the labellum, which to a greater or lesser degree mimics the shape, size, and color of the female wasp. Also, the crimson spider orchid, like many others, cannot grow without an association with mycorrhizal fungi that penetrate the minute seed coat to assist in germination. And the adult plant, which has an indefinite life span, generally only replaces its own tuber each season, so division cannot be relied upon as a method of increasing plant numbers. Thus far only one method has been found to increase their numbers: to grow their seeds (which have low viability) within one inch of an existing adult plant in its woodland habitat. Unfortunately, though, this might be damaging to the adult.

Locals Rallying to Save the Orchids
Paul told me that the cooperation of local people has been crucial in protecting this beautiful plant from extinction. It was nature enthusiasts who first approached him, concerned by the threat posed by cattle grazing. The scientists at once got to work on a recovery plan, “but it was these concerned citizens, who truly cared, who set to work to give vital protection in the short term,” Paul told me. “While waiting for the deliberations of the scientists concerned, the species might have vanished forever.” Various organizations provided funding to assist with fencing off the area to prevent further damage from cattle grazing. The indigenous Wiradjuri community instantly offered to help. They became heavily involved, and Paul told me their participation has been essential to the success of the program so far.

Orchid surveys were conducted hand in hand with indigenous heritage surveys, and that led to the additional fencing construction and repair that was essential to reduce damage inflicted by livestock and the illegal use of vehicles in the orchids’ woodland habitat. And of course, “while these efforts are focused on the orchids, they also help to regenerate the habitat of a number of other threatened and endangered species including platypus, barking owls, swift parrots, regent honeyeaters, squirrel gliders, nobbi dragons, pink-tailed worm lizards, and growling grass frogs.” (I really want to hear a growling grass frog!)

“Then, in 2000,” Paul continued, “we were ably assisted during our surveys by a group of Green Corps volunteers from California on an exchange program.” I could hear how excited he was when he told me that “within twenty meters of our first line search, nineteen-year-old Angela from Los Angeles had found a new individual! It was an enormous moment for the whole group, as no new plants had been found during the previous three years of surveys!”

Three years later, an invitation was issued to the local community for volunteer participation in a biodiversity survey. They wanted to get a reasonably accurate idea as to what was out there so that they could better manage the woodlands. Seventy volunteers led by ten local experts assisted over one weekend. During that survey Emmo and his daughter Bela found a second new individual orchid, and Michael found a third! This was fortunate, as two known adult plants had not resurfaced for the third year running and had probably died. That would have been devastating were it not for the three new individuals discovered by Angela, Emmo and Bela, and Michael.

In September 2008, I had the great pleasure of meeting Paul during my Australian tour. I had been invited to stay in Government House in Melbourne, and Paul joined me for lunch. I asked him what had led to his passion for orchids, and how he felt about the work he was doing. He told me he felt it was a privilege to look after his population of eighteen crimson spider orchids but that it left him with a sense of responsibility—“because I want to make sure that some remain for our kids to discover later in their lives.”

Being a good steward for future generation is important to Paul. He had brought photographs of his family to share with me, including one of his mother, Betty. When I had spoken with him around Christmas 2006, his mother had been near the end of her long, productive life, and we talked about her as we sat over lunch, two years later. “Whenever she could spare time from raising her seven children,” he said, “she would potter around in the garden. Her love of flowers rubbed off on all of us.”

A few days after that meeting with Paul, I got together with Andrew Pritchard again. I was giving a lecture in Melbourne and had invited Andrew to join me at the podium as one of four “local heroes”—people who have dedicated their lives to protecting the natural world. Each of these people shared with the audience something of their passion for their work. Andrew talked about the project dear to his heart—the unique partnership known as the Threatened Orchid Recovery Team. Formed in 1996, it is an extraordinarily diverse partnership of government, educational, industry, and community organizations, as well as individuals. The groups of volunteers and experts make and repair fences, negotiate with landowners, put up signposts, and monitor progress. TORT is now working with eighty different species of threatened orchids. This team has almost certainly saved at least six species that were critically endangered from extinction.

For instance, the sunshine diuris orchid (Diuris fragrantissima) plummeted in numbers from thousands in the 1970s, down to only one population with fewer than one hundred individuals in 1980, and to an all-time low in the mid-1990s when there were just five individuals left in the wild. Fortunately, there were a few plants in cultivation, and in 2005 that tiny population had increased to thirty. Moreover during 2004 and 2005, 120 cultivated sunshine diuris orchids were reintroduced to a second site in the wild, and all of them flowered. The charming spider orchid (Caladenia amoena), at one time represented by only 13 individuals, now numbers 122. It was found that forming moss beds for those orchids returned to the wild helped prevent water loss and encouraged the growth of fungi.

Four other species of spider orchid (the red cross, yellow lip, candy, and limestone orchids) were known from only a small number of populations with only a small number of individuals in each. Andrew told me that recent reintroductions of these species into the wild have been very successful. Sites were selected based on extensive study of the habitats preferred by the different species. One of the criteria was the presence of the thynnine wasps that are essential for pollination in so many orchid species. Once the sites had been chosen, more than eight hundred plants of these species were then reintroduced.

“The results, so far, have been outstanding,” said Andrew. “There was natural pollination at some of the sites. And many of the reintroduced plants reemerged after the summer dormancy period.”

A Seed Bank for Orchids
Andrew also told me about the seed bank that TORT has established. “It stores seeds from twenty-three species of orchids, and it’s planning to expand outside Victoria into other areas where orchids are in need of protection.” When that happens, more Australians will become involved. “When they volunteer,” Andrew mused, “they will know the thrill of helping to protect something unique and very special.”

How fortunate that the very fascination that people have always felt for these jewels of the natural world—for so long expressed through the selfish and thoughtless passion to possess that has brought some of them so close to extinction—is now engendering an equally passionate determination to save them.