January 2021 WNCOS Newsletter
January 2021 WNCOS Newsletter
Happy New Year everyone! I trust you are all as excited as I am, moving into the new year. One with much new hope and some good reasons to be excited about. I hope everyone is doing well, staying healthy, and spending as much time with your orchids as possible.
Last month’s program with Alan Koch was simply awesome. We had a crowd in our ZOOM meeting, had a bunch of fun, and learned a lot of great information in a compressed amount of time. Several folks were taking notes as they nodded along, soaking up all the great information Alan had to offer. Thanks to everyone who made time to attend and participate!
A bit of an update regarding our orchid festival, as I continue to be asked. We will not be having the Asheville Orchid Festival this upcoming April. Most folks seem to have assumed this, but for obvious reasons related to the COVID-19 virus, we are unable to host an event. We feel confident that we will be able to bring back our festival in the spring of 2022. However, a desire of mine here later in the new year is to install a live orchid exhibit at the North Carolina Arboretum. This would primarily serve as a teaser for the return of the Asheville Orchid Festival. A promotional event for everyone, a tool for our friends at the Arboretum to draw their visitors inside. Obviously, this is on hold until we see how the virus calms down and things begin to look more normal. We are looking toward the fall of this year at this time, and we will keep everyone posted. Once we are able to identify a month in late 2021, we will communicate with the membership and use the exhibit installation as a training tool for any members who have little or no exhibit experience. Hopefully, we can accomplish something like this later this year, we’d like to create some excitement and get the creative juices flowing again.
Our next membership meeting is this Sunday at 2:00 pm, via ZOOM. Dr. Larry Zettler will be our guest on Sunday. Larry is no stranger to orchids and orchid conservation. He has been contributing vast knowledge and studies to the AOS for over 20 years. Just last month, Larry produced an AOS webinar on the Guanahacabibies Cuban National Park and the Ghost Orchids of Florida. Sunday’s program will include much of the same material about Florida’s native Ghost Orchid. This will be a real treat. I hope you will join us. Please find the invitation link to this program below:
Thank you,
Mike Mims
President, WNCOS
Topic: WNCOS Presents: Dr. Lawrence Zettler; Native Species of S. Florida, including the Ghost Orchid
Time: Jan 10, 2021 02:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Meeting ID: 848 5810 0395
Passcode: 122836
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Meeting ID: 848 5810 0395
Passcode: 122836
Dr. Lawrence W. Zettler
Hitchcock Professor of Biology at Illinois College
Program Native Species of S. Florida (including the Ghost Orchid)
Bio:
Dr. Lawrence (Larry) W. Zettler earned his B.S. degree from the University of Florida (1987) and Ph.D. in Plant Physiology from Clemson University (1994). In 1996, he established Illinois College’s Orchid Recovery Program that enlists the help of undergraduate college students to conserve rare species throughout the world. He has worked with 100+ undergraduate students studying rare orchids in the Midwest, Florida, Hawaii, Cuba, and Ecuador. During 2012-2017, he collaborated with researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to conserve rare orchids of Madagascar. He is currently studying rare orchids in the Western Pacific (Republic of Palau) with researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. He has authored/co-authored 50+ peer-reviewed scientific publications, three book chapters, and illustrated two books in color including Dragonflies of North America (Scientific Publishers, 2000). His research with students has been publicized on media outlets including National Public Radio, Huffington Post, Radio Havana Cuba, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, CBS Miami, and National Geographic. In February 2020, he was invited by the U.S. Postal Service to speak at the unveiling of the native orchid postage stamps. He and his wife, Dr. Elizabeth Rellinger Zettler, and their daughter, Audrey, enjoy quiet home life in Jacksonville, Illinois with their menagerie of pets and plants.