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Compass issue 10
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Compass is a quarterly publication of the USDA Forest Service's Southern Research Station (SRS). As part of the Nation's largest forestry research organization -- USDA Forest Service Research and Development -- SRS serves 13 Southern States and beyond. The Station's 130 scienists work in more than 20 units located across the region at Federal laboratories, universites, and experimental forests.



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Issue 10

Plants in Peril: Local Solutions

Many plants now listed as threatened or endangered will be seriously affected by further climate changes. Take, for example, the Kentucky lady’s slipper (Cypripedium kentuckiense)—a stately perennial plant with the largest flowers of any lady’s slipper known. Though its range includes much of the Southeastern United States, the plant occurs in widely separated populations, some very small.

In the 600,000-acre Kisatchie National Forest (KNF) in Louisiana, populations of Kentucky lady’s slipper are found on two sites, with a total of five plants. A collaborative effort to restore the plant to the region began with the efforts of Kevin Allen, a local high school student and amateur botanist who, with the help of an expert orchid grower, produced seedlings from an orchid he found flowering on one of the Kisatchie sites.

 

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Recognizing the opportunity to restore the orchid on more sites in the national forest, but lacking the expertise to grow seedlings, KNF approached the Central Louisiana Orchid Society, which got a research and conservation grant from the Southwest Regional Orchid Growers’ Association to buy plantlets for restoration outplanting. With additional grants from SRS and the Forest Service Southern Region, over 700 seedlings are being produced.

The success of this initiative has led to a similar cooperative effort between the National Forests In Texas and Houston Orchid Society. “Although this is not a traditional species for the Forest Service to restore, it shows how the interest of just one person can lead to a collaborative process to restore a threatened species,” says James Barnett, SRS emeritus scientist involved in the project.

Further information: Dr. James Barnett, "Helping the wild orchid bloom again," from the Louisiana Forestry Association Forests and People, 2008.





One type of wildland-urban interface is the isolated interface, where second homes are scattered across remote areas.
A collaborative restoration outplanting of Kentucky lady’s slipper (Cypripedium kentuckiense) in the Kisatchie National Forest in Texas shows how people and groups can work together to respond to changing conditions. (Photo by Charles T. Bryson, USDA Agricultural Research Service, www.bugwwod.org)