Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

Specific Families and Genera => Pleione and Orchidaceae => Topic started by: vigor on March 25, 2014, 03:04:33 PM

Title: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: vigor on March 25, 2014, 03:04:33 PM: hello,everyone!
I am a newbie from china and i want to show you some pictures of pleione albiflora i took last year.
picture1&2 the habitat of pleione albiflora
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: Darren on March 25, 2014, 03:20:47 PM: Welcome to the SRGC forum vigor, and thank you for posting these wonderful pictures. They really give a sense of the habitat - far more than most Pleione habitat pictures I have seen.
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: Maggi Young on March 25, 2014, 04:07:53 PM: Hello vigor, thank you for showing so well how these flowers live in nature.
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: Paul Cumbleton on March 25, 2014, 04:17:14 PM: Hi Vigor,
Thanks for showing these! - there are surprisingly few pictures taken of pleiones in the wild. Could you tell us roughly where these pictures were taken? This species has only been officially recorded in the wild on a very few occasions and it would be good to have more information on its distribution. All the records so far come from northern Burma and western Yunnan. Do your pictures fit in with this?

Thanks
Paul
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: gregork on March 25, 2014, 08:40:43 PM: Very nice! Thanks for showing these Vigor ;)

regards
G
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: erf on March 25, 2014, 08:59:20 PM: Fantastic pictures Vigor, thanks for posting them. If you have more pictures I would very much like if you posted them. It is a fine clone of albiflora shown on the last picture.
Since you have been on the location,could you say anything about the amount of plants in the area.

Regards Erling
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: gregork on March 25, 2014, 09:01:30 PM: I have to agree with you Erf.. The cone on the last picture is superb! :P :)

G
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: vigor on March 26, 2014, 05:06:24 AM: Quote from: Paul Cumbleton on March 25, 2014, 04:17:14 PM
Hi Vigor,
Thanks for showing these! - there are surprisingly few pictures taken of pleiones in the wild. Could you tell us roughly where these pictures were taken? This species has only been officially recorded in the wild on a very few occasions and it would be good to have more information on its distribution. All the records so far come from northern Burma and western Yunnan. Do your pictures fit in with this?

Thanks
Paul

hi paul,
this species ,as you have mentioned, is not a widely spread species. i think the place where i took these pictures is more likely than anywhere else this species should be,because it's the place where the type specimen was found.i discoverd these plants at Cangshan, the mountain range near the city of Dali(located in the west of YUNNAN). The plants grow at the moss coverd rocks along the stream.
i remember there was a china-Britain expedition of Cangshan vegetation in the 1980s, and before long the species pleione albiflora was published as a new one. so i believe that one of the original clones in the UK came from this montain and probably though the expedition.by the way, there are 4 pleione species on these moutains according to the specimen record. they are albiflora, bulbocodioides,forrestii and yunnanensis and probably the natural hybrid confusa and taliensis(named after the city of Dali) are also here. what an amazing place! i personally saw two species,albiflora and bulbocodioides within a not large area.
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: vigor on March 26, 2014, 05:27:48 AM: Quote from: erf on March 25, 2014, 08:59:20 PM
Fantastic pictures Vigor, thanks for posting them. If you have more pictures I would very much like if you posted them. It is a fine clone of albiflora shown on the last picture.
Since you have been on the location,could you say anything about the amount of plants in the area.

Regards Erling
i am sorry to tell you that there are very little amount fo plants left because in china pleiones are traditional herb medicine and the bulbs are under collection by local people for Pharmaceutical purpose or recent years for ornamental plant to illegally export to,for example,Europe.people lives in the area where pleiones grow are usually not very whealthy and they need some extra money obtained from nature recource.
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: Paul Cumbleton on March 26, 2014, 10:14:28 AM: Thanks for sharing Vigor. It is a shame about the over-collecting of Pleione, a fate now being suffered by so many plants. This is why I try my hardest to propagate these rarities from seed - the more we can make things widely available from cultivated stock, the less pressure there might be on wild collecting. At least I hope that might be the case. The wider issues of poverty and the understandable reasons that local people have for collecting is a more complex issue to resolve. The few initiatives there have been to try and help people to cultivate these plants locally, rather than collecting them, are to be applauded and supported. This gives the possibility of an on-going source of income, whereas collecting only helps until the wild populations have all gone.

Paul
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: karel_t on March 27, 2014, 12:18:00 PM: Nice albiflora Vigor. I'm interesting about diversity of this species in the wild. Could you tell us how many clones you can recognize in this locality?
K.
Title: Re: Pleione albiflora in the wild
Post by: vigor on March 28, 2014, 01:54:40 AM: Quote from: karel_t on March 27, 2014, 12:18:00 PM
Nice albiflora Vigor. I'm interesting about diversity of this species in the wild. Could you tell us how many clones you can recognize in this locality?
K.
there were other populations but they were on the cliffs far beyond my reach,so technically i only saw one clone