Rare red helleborine orchid blooms in Cotswold woodland

An "extremely rare and endangered" orchid which was once on the brink of extinction in the UK is blooming again in Gloucestershire.

Red helleborine, Cephalanthera rubra, is normally found in Europe where it is classed as "vulnerable" and only exists on three sites in southern England.

Seven years ago there were only three plants at the National Trust site in the Cotswolds.

Now, following conservation work there are some 30 plants at the location.

National Trust countryside ranger Tim Jenkins said although the species had been recorded in the beech woodlands site - which he asked the BBC not to identify - for some 70 years, it was only in recent years that the number of plants had increased and they were starting to flower regularly.

He said little was known about the precise habitat and growing conditions so conservation work was going on at the site in an attempt to optimise the surroundings to allow the orchid to flourish

"We don't fully understand how the plant reproduces here as the particular bee that normally pollinates it [in Europe] is not found in the UK.

"We've tried manually pollinating the orchid and even taking cuttings but we've not had any luck yet but we are sharing our knowledge with experts at Kew Gardens and Natural England.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-18678758

190 plants face pirates’ threat

Bio-pirates, mostly multinational pharma and seed companies, are abusing 190 plant species including endangered ones, which are in the exempted list of the National Biodiversity Board.


Environment Support Group experts have now asked the government to repeal the list and control the companies’ access to these endangered plants.

Environmental activist Mr Leo F. Saldhana said, “Stating that the 190 species are normally traded commodities, the government exempted them from the list due to which they lost protection under the Biodiversity Act. The companies do not require prior permission for their export. Out of the 190 species, 15 are threatened, vulnerable or critically endangered. It has been proved how exports can drive endangered species to extinction.”

He added that around 900 species of plants were originally listed for exclusion but 190 was finalised due to pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.

“When the Wildlife Act mentions that these plants are protected under the law, how can they be exempted from the Biodiversity Act? Even most forest range officers do not know that they are empowered to file cases of bio-piracy in police stations under the Act,” Mr Saldhana observed.

Meanwhile, the National Biodiversity Board had decided to launch a criminal prosecution against the MNC Monsanto, for accessing varieties of brinjal in the country without permission to produce BT brinjal.

“Monsanto didn’t take any permission from the biodiversity board for accessing the brinjal varieties. It is a criminal offence under section 3, 4 and 5 of the Biodiversity Act. By the time they started the BT brinjal project in 2005 the rules were in force,” said Environmental scientist Ms S. Bhargavi Rao.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/hyderabad/190-plants-face-pirates%E2%80%99-threat-051

Cycads face extinction

Johannesburg - The cycad, which is the world's oldest living seed plant and has outlived the dinosaurs, faces extinction if people continue to wrench the plants from their wild habitats and plant them in gardens.


This is according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature on Wednesday.

In an address to delegates at the Biodiversity Convention in Japan, the IUCN said that cycads were the most threatened group of organisms to have been assessed by them so far.

The global conservation assessment of 308 cycad species shows that their status has declined from 53% threatened in 2003 to 62% threatened in 2010. The South African National Biodiversity Institute said the country was one of the world centres of cycad diversity with 39 species.

"It is also one of the global hotspots for threatened cycads with 68% of South Africa's cycads threatened with extinction compared to the global average of 62%. From South Africa 31% are classified as critically endangered, compared to the global average of 17%.

"South Africa also has three of the four species classified as extinct in the wild, two of which have become extinct in the wild in the period between 2003 and 2010," the institute said.

The removal of cycads from the wild for private collections has resulted in two species becoming extinct in the wild.

Bark harvesting for the medicinal trade has increased in South Africa and has also resulted in declines in cycad populations, even resulting in the complete loss of populations in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, said the institute.

"We have seen dramatic declines in some species over ten years, one of them from around 700 plants to fewer than 100, and this is going to result in extinctions," it said.

- SAPA


http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Cycads-face-extinction-20101027