Introduction

Most publications and all articles listed below are available here in electronic form, so may be read on-line or downloaded for reading later.  The great majority are available in English, with some also available in other languages.  The availability of each document is shown by the following buttons -

Just click on the button for the language version you require.

The documents are available in various formats.  If you need information on how to view or download them, please click here . . .

New publication

Special issue of Annals of Botany

Orchid Conservation News

The OSG Newsletter.  All issues published to date are available here: complete issues in PDF format, and contents lists for easy reference in TXT format.

Orchids In Situ

The newsletter of OSG's In Situ Conservation Committee.

Caution.  File sizes for Volumes 2 and 3 are very large, so will take some considerable time (c.10 minutes or more) to download if you have a slow-speed dial-up connection to the Internet.

Orchids: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan

Edited by Eric Hágsater and Vinciane Dumont, compiled by Alec Pridgeon.
Published by the Orchid Specialist Group, 1996, 153pp.  ISBN 2-8317-0325-5

The Orchid Action Plan was the pioneer IUCN/SSS Action Plan for a plant group, and the first major effort to collate global and regional information about orchid diversity, threats and conservation challenges.  In the Executive Summary, Dr Alec Pridgeon writes: "This comprehensive publication provides an outline of the present status of orchids in the wild, the major threats to the family, and the conservation actions needed.  It chronicles the threats to certain critical species, but more importantly to critical habitats that host extraordinarily high orchid diversity and endemicity.  It explores and recommends specific ways that national and local government legislators, scientists, orchid conservationists and growers can all help to reverse present trends."

OSG Strategic Plan 2000-2005

All relevant articles will be considered for inclusion here
Please e-mail details to the

"An Annotated Checklist of the Orchids of Sri Lanka"

Suranjan Fernando (a member of the Indian Subcontinent Regional Group) and Paul Ormerod

Originally published in Rheedea (2008).

An illustrated checklist of the 188 species in 78 genera found on Sri Lanka. Of these, 55 species are endemic. Reproduced with kind permission of the Editors of Rheedea.

"Watch your Step"

Marilyn Light (Chair, North American Regional Group and Education Committee, OSG)

Originally published in Orchids (February 2008)

An article about the effect of trampling on orchids. Reproduced with kind permission of the American Orchid Society.

"Growing Orchids from Seed : Seed Storage - A Gift for Future Generations"

Philip Seaton (Chair, Ex Situ Conservation Group, OSG)

Originally published in The Orchid Review, Volume 108, Number 1231 (January-February 2000)

An introduction to the storage of orchid seed.

"Deflasking Orchid Seedlings"

Eduardo Sánchez Sánchez (Ex Situ Conservation Group, OSG)

Originally published in The Orchid Review, Volume 111, Number 1252 (July-August 2003)

"Las Orquídeas del Género Cattleya en Colombia - Las especies, sus variantes, su distribución, su hábitat y el estado actual de su conservación"

Emilio Constantino Chuaire

Currently available only in Spanish.

"Inventario y Comparación de las Especies de Orquídeas (Orchidaceae) en Fragmentos de Bosques Naturales con Diferentes Grados de Intervencion Antropica, en la Región del Alto Guamues (Nariño, Colombia)"

Emilio Constantino Ch., Jaime Castro M. and Oscar Duque L.

Currently available only in Spanish.

"Distribution of the indigenous orchids of Sri Lanka

and some proposals for their conservation"

Rohan H Wickramasinghe

Originally published in Proceedings, UNESCO-MAB (Sri Lanka Committee) and Natural  Resources, Energy and Science Authority Regional Seminar on "Forests of the Humid Tropics of South and South East Asia", Kandy, Sri Lanka, 19-22 March 1996, printed by the National Science Foundation, Sri Lanka (1999).  Reproduced here with permission.

"Step Softly: Environmental Stewardship"

Marilyn H S Light

Originally published in The Native Orchid Conference Journal 2(2), May 2005.  Reproduced here with permission.

Profiles - Flagship Species of OSG's North America Regional Group

Marilyn H S Light, Chair, NAROSG

Available here as PDF files (152Kb-178Kb), each for printing off-line in one of two paper sizes - US Letter (8½" x 11") and ISO A4.