Critically endangered orchids reintroduced to the wild have achieved a more than 70 percent survival rate over the past two years, the Taiwan Biodiversity Research Institute (TBRI) said yesterday.
Dendrobium linawianum — included in the institute’s Red List of Vascular Plants of Taiwan as critically endangered, as its wild population has shrunk to fewer than 200 plants — is a rarely seen indigenous orchid considered to be a valuable herb in traditional Chinese medicine.
It is an epiphyte that grows on tree trunks in primary broadleaf forests at an altitude of up to 1,000m and prefers humid, well-ventilated and sunny environments, the institute said.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Biodiversity Research Institute
It is about 25cm to 40cm long and blooms from April to May with large and colorful flowers, it said.
However, only five wild sightings have been recorded of the orchid over the past century, which were limited to New Taipei City and Miaoli County, it said.
The plant’s population in the county is presumed to have disappeared, as it has been many years since the last sighting was reported in the region, the institute said.
The orchid’s distribution is now restricted to mountainous areas in New Taipei City, with its population size declining by more than 80 percent over the past decade, it said.
To save D linawianum, the institute has been conducting on-site investigations of its natural habitats in the city in collaboration with the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute and other experts.
Researchers collected orchid pods for sterile sowing on culture media, TBRI said, adding that D linawianum seedlings were cultivated in a greenhouse and planted back in a natural habitat in the city’s Wulai District (烏來) in April 2023, with the survival rate reaching 70 percent over the past two years.
Seedlings were also planted in the district’s Neidong National Forest Recreation Area (內洞國家森林遊樂區) aside from natural habitats, TBRI researcher Chang Li-hui (張麗慧) said.
It took researchers 13 months to grow D linawianum seeds on sterile sowing media and subculture their plantlets before they could be transferred to the greenhouse to grow into seedlings, she said.
Seedlings that had been grown for four years were last year planted in the recreation area and around the district’s Tonghou Forest Road, Chang said.
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