Our reintroduced Wine-lipped Spider orchids are now coming into flower, with 3 flowers and 15 buds currently showing - a 50% increase in bud numbers on previous years.
The exciting news is that, for the first time new plants, those that have naturally germinated on site from seeds of an original plant that was planted in 2018, have produced buds and will hopefully go on to flower.
This is a key achievement for this on-going project where we are working with the Nillumbik Shire Council environmental team to establish a self-sustaining population of this locally threatened species.
The project was begun in 2018 when a 30m x 30m exclusion plot was established on the Co-op, which was selected for its high biodiversity habitat. Co-op members are assisting in the many tasks involved in this comprehensive project to reintroduce the Wine-lipped Spider orchid, Arachnorchis oenochila.
Above: a is the parent plant. d and f are the 2 recruits that have buds. There are another 4 recruits that are just leaves.
September 2022