From post-fire recovery to over a million seeds collected, your support is delivering extraordinary results for Australia’s most threatened orchids and native flora.
News
This season has been one of remarkable resilience. Following fire impacts in the southern Flinders Ranges, the Bayonet Spider-orchid (Caladenia gladiolata) responded with an incredible flowering event, and, crucially, strong natural pollination. This confirms that its highly specialised pollinator has survived and remains active. From this single population, just 0.4 grams of seed were collected, equating to more than 1.1 million seeds.
Meanwhile, over on the Yorke Peninsula, ideal rainfall conditions led to a breakthrough discovery: more than 1,000 flowering Large-club Spider-orchids (Caladenia macroclavia) at a site previously thought lost. The team secured another ~1.6 million seeds, an enormous boost for the species’ future.
Behind the scenes, propagation efforts are scaling up. In the lab, hundreds of endangered orchids are now growing – tiny but vital.
Encouragingly, several species are now moving closer to recovery in the wild:
Nearly 600 propagated plants of multiple orchid species are already established in nursery conditions, preparing for future translocations.
New populations have been discovered, dramatically increasing known numbers for some species.
Protective exclosures are being built to safeguard future plantings from grazing pressure.
At the same time, the project is adapting to challenges. Some species, like the Spiny Daisy, are proving difficult to collect seed from due to environmental conditions and insect predation, while others require innovative approaches such as direct seed burial to establish new wild populations.
Looking ahead, winter will mark a major milestone: the first large-scale translocations of these carefully propagated plants back into protected habitats. This is where years of work – from seed collection, fungal research and propagation – begin to translate into real recovery on the ground.
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