Robert Lawrence, NOSSA vice-President, was the speaker at the May 25th meeting. He spoke on his work in Native Vegetation Restoration projects in South Australia. Throughout his years of work, Robert monitored the orchids using them as a tool to assess the effectiveness of weed control.
In this talk, he shares the lessons learnt and conclusions he has drawn as a result. He concludes that orchids can be used as a Key Performance Indicator of the success of native restoration work. He cites Heather Whiting – the understorey drives the ecosystem in successful restoration.
So onto the video …
Category: Videos
2021 June Talk – Photostacking Australian Orchids
For the June Native Orchid Society of South Australia’s meeting we were privelaged to have June Niejalke speak to our members about how to use photostacking when photographing our beautiful orchids.
Photographing our exquisite orchids is a challenge due to their size and the need to use macro. Sharp focus seems to elude many of us and for many years, we have admired her sharp images that has enabled us to see the hidden details of these tiny bush gems.
It was a pleasure to listen to her share her photographic methods. I hope you too find this video as helpful as those who were at the meeting found it.
2020 September Talk – Orchids and Fire
The Native Orchid Society is involved in many different activities, one of them being to assist researchers. In 2020, Covid 19 struck bringing many university projects to a halt. But in South Australia, NOSSA members were able to help PhD candidate Alex Thomsen, University of New South Wales, set up her project titled Impacts of Changing Fire Seasons on Orchids. The following video is her brief presentation of her planned research that she gave to the general membership at the September meeting.
Orchid Code of Ethics or How I can conserve our native orchids
So many of us are interested in preserving our native flora and fauna, and for NOSSA it is the native orchids. But many of us may not be aware of how we can play a significant role in minimising our impact upon the environment so that they are still around for our children and grandchildren
The following video is a brief overview of two documents that NOSSA has produced. They are guidelines to help individuals know how they can minimalize their impact on the environment and so assist in the conservation of our beautiful and unique native orchids.
Below are the links to the documents referred to in the video:
Code of Ethics – Sensitive Sites 2 page
Code of Ethics – Sensitive Sites 3 page
Code of Ethics – Photography
Ethical Nature Photography in Tasmania
Australian Orchids: Their Role in Human Lives
In July, NOSSA resumed face to face meetings but with an innovation. We introduced Zoom meeting as part of our face to face meeting. We are hoping that this will allow more members to become involve with the meetings.
Our first speaker, Greg Steenbeeke, spoke to the meeting from Sydney; and we had another member joining in from Victoria. Greg kindly allowed us to record his talk which is available for all to hear.
Speaker: Greg Steenbeeke
Anyone wanting to join our General Meeting, please contact the treasurer via email – nossa.treasurer@gmail.com
NOSSA: The Doco
Last year, UniSA second year media students were required to produce a short documentary about a local organised. Three of their students, Vanessa Rossi, Tayla Elliot and Emma Sullivan, chose to produce a video about the work of the Native Orchid Society of South Australia. And for this we thank them. It was interesting working with them and they learnt a few things about our bush gems – namely that they are not big and showy!
Some adjustment needed to be made to the original video, but it is now available for viewing
Australian Orchids: The How, Where, When & Why
It’s been a little while in coming, but here is the second of a three part educational video about Australian Orchids.
Orchids are special.
They are unique but even more they are important. Orchids are the barometer to the health of the ecosystem.
So, watch and enjoy the video …
To watch the first video click here.
What makes an Orchid and Orchid?
Orchid flowers are extremely variable in appearance, ranging from mimicking spiders, flying ducks, helmets, ants, etc. This variety also can cause some confusion. People have mistaken a different type of flower for an orchid and vis a versa.
This raises the question of what makes an orchid an orchid? With so much variety, how can they possibly belong to the same family?
Using orchids found in the Adelaide Hills, the following video shows three key features that helps identify a flower as an orchid. These three features are found in all orchids worldwide.
So watch and enjoy …
Orchid Seed Conservation
There are many different activities involved with orchid conservation. In situ conservation consists of looking after the orchids where they are growing; maintaining and protection of habitats and ecological systems. On the other hand ex situ conservation is caring for the orchids in cultivation in a similar way that zoos maintain an animals species that is extinct in the wild.
For the orchids one form of ex situ conservation is via seed collection and the propagation of new plants. With many of our terrestrial orchids this is not an easy task but here in South Australia an attempt is being made with four of our endangered orchids.
Unlike some of our terrestrial orchids these are ones which we have not been able to grow. There is a collaborative effort co-ordinated through the South Australian Seed Conservation Centre (Seedbank) to change this. Amongst the people helping the Seedbank are members of the Native Orchid Society of South Australia, students from Kildare College and Dr Noushka Reiter of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.
On July 30 2016, Dan Duval of the Seedbank was interviewed by Jon Lamb on Ashley Walsh’s ABC 891 Adelaide Talkback Gardening program. It is an informative interview and well worth the listen.
For more information on the work of the Seedbank, visit their website
Video as heard on Talkback Gardening with Jon Lamb and Ashley Walsh – Saturdays from 8.30 on 891 ABC Adelaide.
Mad Dogs and …. Orchidologists
Mad dogs and Englishmen are not the only ones to go out in the midday sun. For orchidologists to see Sun Orchids flowering, then it is out into the midday sun on a hot day because that is when they open. There is no point going much before 11am and by 2pm most are closing and no point going out on a cool or windy day.
But for those who don’t want to go out (or cannot get out) into the midday sun, here is a video to be viewed in the cool of the shade.
This video features the Leopard Sun Orchid (Thelymitra benthamiana) an uncommon Sun Orchid in South Australia. Unlike many sun orchids which requires a view of the flower to confirm identification, this one can be identified by the leaf alone. At the beginning of the video take note of its distinctive leaf.
NOSSA 