Rare, Endangered Orchid Blooms In Berkeley

BERKELEY, CA — Home gardeners and flower lovers should rush over to U.C. Botanical Garden, where a rare and endangered orchid is in bloom. You have to go right away — the orchid is flowering this week only, according to Delanie Lowe, a marketing specialist for the Garden.

Specifically, the Peruvian native is a Phragmipedium kovachii, just discovered in 2002. Glen Decker, expert orchid propagator and advocate, wrote in the November 2007 issue of American Orchid Society, "Phragmipedium kovachii has probably been the most important and exciting find in orchids in the past 100 years, and it could well be that for the next 100 years."

According to Lowe here in Berkeley, "this new species took the orchid world by storm for the potential for making new hybrids. Since that time, it has been heavily poached from its tropical cloud forest habitat and is now listed as critically endangered by the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature."

The U.C. Botanical Garden has the orchid because it is a Plant Rescue Center for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. This orchid was given to the Garden in 2015 after it was illegally imported into the United States.

The orchid is in the Orchid, Fern and Carnivorous Plant House at the U.C. Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive, Berkeley, CA 94720-5045. It's open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. While there, wander around and see some of the 11,000 different plants from around the world, cultivated by region in naturalistic landscapes spread over 34 acres.

The Garden Shop & Plant Deck at the Garden is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

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