I want to announce our next Orchids in the Wild trip to Colombia. The trip runs from arrival in Pereira on November 3, 2018, and ends with departure from Cali on November 18. The trip is led by OCA’s Director Steve Beckendorf and by Colombia’s Sebastian Vieira and Luis Perez. Steve Beckendorf is one of the OCA’s better…
We are happy to announce our earliest Orchids in the Wild Trip for 2019 to Yunnan, China! This will be the OCA’s fourth trip to this incredibly interesting and diverse country, and the first that will bring us to see epiphytic orchids, in addition to many lithophytic and terrestrial orchid species. The trip starts April 16,…
June 4 – June 14, 2019 $500 per person deposit holds your space on this trip. Led by Peter Tobias, sixteen travellers will enjoy ten exclusive days cruising the Rio Negro on the RV Otter with Captain Gilberto Castro. Accommodations feature air conditioning and en suite bath. Day trips into the riverine forest will feature orchids, bromeliads,…
September 17 – Oct 6, 2019 $500 Deposit per person due December 1, 2018. One of the most incredible places on earth, Madagascar is THE diversity hotspot with a very high proportion of endemic flora and fauna, including about 950 orchid species. The tour, led by Madagascar veterans Clare and Johan Hermans, starts with a meet up…
As orchid lovers, members of the OCA work to preserve orchids and orchid habitats. We create protected reserves where wild orchids can continue to live and blossom in the rain and sunshine. A side benefit is that everything else that lives in the reserve is protected too.
The OCA protects orchid in their native habitats because this approach preserves many species of orchids in the same space, even ones not yet identified, as well as the ecosystems in which they exist. In their natural setting, orchids are subject to the environmental pressures that led to their evolution in the first place, and thus they are most at home there. They are adapted to the local climate. Their pollinators are there. And in their native habitat that orchids maintain themselves. In these pages you can learn more about the reserves we have created and you can help with this work.
An orchid blooming on a tree trunk in the sun and rain of its native habitat is one of the miracles of the natural world every orchid lover should see at least once. The OCA sponsors trips to see orchids in the wild in our reserves as well as elsewhere. So far we have had trips to Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, China, France, Greece, and Thailand. In 2018 we will go to Mexico, China, and Colombia. Primarily, these trips are a lot of fun. You will come home with many wonderful orchid photos. They are also very educational; once you see how the orchids you are trying to grow at home actually grow in nature you will know a lot more about the particular conditions that will make them thrive for you. Orchids in the Wild tours take you to places you would never see otherwise.
Ph.D. Director and OCA President. Former chair, San Diego County Orchid Society Conservation Committee; Member, Orchid Specialist Group, IUCN; Board Member, Orchid Digest Foundation.Retired Associate Professor of Biochemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA Orchid interests: Conservation, landscaping with orchids, orchid focused ecotourism.
Ph. D. Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, and Associate Professor of Environmental and Ocean Sciences, University of San Diego. Ron also serves on the boards of the EcoMinga Foundation (a conservation organization based in Ecuador) and Orchid Digest.
Ph.D. Director. Member, Orchid Specialist Group, IUCN. Member, American Orchid Society Conservation Committee. Director, The Orchid Digest Corporation. Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley. Orchid interests: Orchids of the Andes, especially Odontoglossums, Cyrtochilums, Masdevallias; preservation of orchid-rich cloud forests.
Ph.D. Director. President San Francisco Orchid Society (2011-2014), former president Peninsula Orchid Society (2008). Consulting professor of vascular surgery, Stanford, independent consultant to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Former Vice President, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, Exelixis. Author of two books on orchids (Masdevallias, Gems of the Orchid World; Miniature Orchids), and one on a genus of North American wildflowers (Calochortus, Mariposa Lilies and their Relatives) with co-author and photographer, Ron Parsons. Orchid interests: cool and intermediate growing miniature orchids, preservation of orchid habitats.
