Boston Flora

Tag: Wild Orchids

  • Spring, 2023, Dates to be Determined: Discovering Orchids & Flowers in the Wild: A Botanical Expedition to Greece

    Inspired by famous plant hunters of the past, GardenTours.com is organizing a botanical expedition to Greece in Spring 2023 to discover orchids and flowers growing in the wild. Places on this all-inclusive tour are limited to 12. If a botanical adventure is something you’ve always dreamed of doing, then this is the tour for you !

    We travel from Athens to two completely different Greek Islands: Crete and Chios. Both are charming and full of botanical interest. The temperature during our tour will be pleasant and the sun will be shining over the shores and rocky outcrops that are our hunting grounds for spring orchids and wild flowers.

    Your tour guide is a leading expert in his field and can recognize and name all different types of Orchid. He also knows exactly where they grow. The genera of wild orchids that we might find is impressive: Serapias, Orchis, Ophrys, Dactylrhiza, Barlia, Cephelanthera, Anacamptis and many others. All should be in flower during our visit. There is also an excellent chance you will see several species of each. Other spring flowers you will see during our expeditions are Ranunculus, Cyclamen, Cistus, Fritillaria, Iris, Allium, Ferula and many more. All will be growing in their natural habitat and flowering before the intensity of the sun increases and the land become arid.

    Complete itinerary and pricing information may be found at www.gardentours.com

  • Wednesday, March 4, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Wild Orchids of New England

    On Wednesday, March 4, from 7 – 8:30, Grow Native Massachusetts will sponsor a free talk by Bill Brumback, Director of Conservation, New England Wild Flower Society, to be held at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway in Cambridge.

    Did you know that New England is home to more than 50 species of native terrestrial orchids? Although not so showy as the tropical orchids of the florist trade, our hardy species have fascinated botanists for centuries.

    Adapted to specific habitats from Maine’s northern woodlands to the sands of Nantucket, these orchids are fascinating in their diversity and their adaptations. Discover more about our New England orchids, their haunts, their peculiar lifestyles, their rarity, and their pollination systems. Learn which ones are cultivated in the nursery trade and adapted to gardens, and how we can conserve all of these species.

    Bill Brumback has worked for the New England Wild Flower Society for several decades. His contributions to the conservation of our region’s flora are extensive, and his work to propagate and protect Robbin’s cinquefoil in New Hampshire’s White Mountains led to its recovery and subsequent removal from the U.S. Endangered Species list. He has been studying the rare native orchid, small whorled pogonia (Isotria medeoloides), for thirty years and claims that he still doesn’t understand it.