The wild orchids are dying off at an alarming rate and their plight is stirring calls for “rewilding” places (north Bengal ) where they thrived until driven out by habitat loss owing to illegal logging and development.
Key points
- The most endangered are the epiphytic orchids which grows on another plant/tree merely for physical support, drawing moisture and nutrients from the air, not from the host. These are not parasitic.
- Some point to trees laden with orchids being felled to build a highway that rips through the forest.
- Orchids are natural gauges of air quality because they don’t grow in polluted air.
- They draw pollinators like bees and other insects to their nectar and thereby help cross-pollination.
- Caterpillars thrive on shoots and roots of orchids — food that helps the next generation of insects to survive and grow.
- The Oraon and Kharia tribal communities depend on wild flora and fauna to make their own medicines and the wild orchids are used to treat a range of diseases — cuts and fractures, skin diseases, aches and pains, gastrointestinal acidity and so on.
