h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've had one as a pot plant in my house for several years.

Had I known its rarity I wouldn't have let it recently die and replaced it with a 'more interesting' orchid.

Hello Orcus.
Don't worry, it would'nt have been the british native slipper-orchid, it was probably a Paphilopedium which is also known as a Slipper-orchid.

Ah well, I can go back to thinking it was rubbish then

And yes, it was one of those right enough. Bought in Tesco quite some time ago.

I actually think they are very pretty, mine is just coming into flower again now after a years break. It flowered for 8 months last time, really worth the wait for me.

Yes we got ours to flower a couple of times and they were nice but there are other varieties that are much nicer in my opinion and flower a lot more prolifically. Ours was hard work and took a long time to get it to produce.

There used to be ladyslippers in my neighbor's land when I was growing up in Massachusetts. Most of them were pink and smelled gorgeous (very sweet, like bubblegum). A few were yellow. They are all long gone since then. I have seen some in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Hello Orcus.
There are indeed many orchids which flower more often, and are bigger and more colourful. I'm a bit of an orchid nut i guess as i like them all!

Hiya Paul.
I would have loved to have seen those. I guess your country has the same problem as ours, the demise of native species

We also have incursions of non-native species that choke out many of the native ones. At the top of Mount Haleakala in Maui (part of Hawaii), there are dandelions and Monarch butterflies. The native silverswords, which can only grow in that one place, are few and far between .

But I'm encouraged to hear that somebody is propagating ladyslipper seeds in a hope of building up the species again. Many years ago, when my sister was a girl, she picked a ladyslipper and happened to drop it among a small grove of pines about 20 feet from our property's boundaries. The seeds from that one ladyslipper took root, and several more grew in that grove for a while. Ladyslippers seem to require shade, and they often grow near pine trees. Deforestation is therefore doubly harmful to them.

We have the same problem in the UK. Non native species finding their way into the wild and taking over. The problem with alot of these non natives is they seem to be very invasive and literally force out the natives.
There are programmes here which propogate and return native species back into the wild, always a good thing, though not always sucessful.

Maybe one day you will get to see those lovely slipper-orchids back in the wild again.

I'm lucky enough to have native orchids growing in my garden, so i'm doing my own small piece of conservation.

I just can't imagine ANY orchid being rubbish. I've seen only a few live orchids, but find them devistatingly beautiful!

It was beautiful, for about 2 weeks every 3 years when it flowered. Otherwise it was just a bunch of fairly dull leaves. That's what I mean by a bit rubbish

I've just been given another orchid plant for christmas that has more flowers already than my Lady's Slipper ever produced in total in its 6-7 year lifetime with me.

And before you question my commitment to plant life I'd point out I have a house full of very successful pot plants and spent about six months of this year not having to buy most vegetables because we were eating the crop from my garden

What kind of orchid did you get for christmas?
I've run out of room to have any more in the house, i have 8 already. 5 phaleonopsis (moth orchid) 1 dendrobium 1 pleone and 1 slipper orchid. I might be tempted to add just one more when i go to the rhs orchid show in March.

There's a movie about orchids. It's called "Adaptation."

Really! Do you think it might be available in the UK?

Amazon.uk.co lists 14 copies of the DVD of "Adaptation", either new or used.

My new orchid is a Phalaenopsis, the moth orchid

Like this one http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.orchidcare.com/PhalwithInsert.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.orchidcare.com/phalaenopsis.htm&usg=__WO1QsAPM5sYcRacJBc7L1KMwK68=&h=432&w=324&sz=31&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=4VSO9yRf_LO2TM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphalaenopsis%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

except the flowers are yellow cored rather than pink.

Lovely, i do like the moth orchids and they are so easy to keep. I did an entry on them a couple of years back.

If you would like to see some of my orchids you can look at my photo site which is here <./>http://www.venus-garden.fotki.com</.> I'm not good with links, so you might have to swap the :// about Anyway there is an album titled orchids, all the orchids on that page are mine.

All but four of the pictures are blocked by the filter my employers put up on my work computer. But those four pics are lovely.