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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ghostly Vision" data-source="post: 1659351" data-attributes="member: 11550">DavidYou make a number of valid points, and I agree with all of them.Sites for almost all British orchids are in the public domain - if you wanted to see all the British species (Ghost excepted for now), you could spend a very limited amount of time on the internet and email less than five people and have sites for all of them - including biggies like Red helleborine and Lady's slipper.However, to compare Ghost orchid with Eastern crowned warbler is not comparing like with like. The warbler is a vagrant, not native to our fauna, and it is able to fly off if someone gets too close.A plant like Ghost, with only one surviving individual which is part of our native flora - and  fixed to the ground - cannot run away from a careless boot or a collector with a trowel.One should compare this with the last pair of Red-backed shrikes to breed in East Anglia - taking of their eggs or the pair would mean extinction of a native breeder.Because of its method of growth - it relies entirely on a very specific set of conditions to even flower - the digging up of a single plant would prevent reoccurrence at the site. The original find in Herefords in 1854 was exactly this situation - a "considerable mass" was removed to a garden to prevent it being trodden on. It has never flowered at the site again - and of course it dies in the transplanted position.Ghosts were dug up twice in the 1970's from the Marlow site, and subsequently occurrences became less frequent. This was as a direct result of the site becoming too well known.In 2007 several Military orchids were dug up from the best known site in Bucks. In 2009 all the Red helleborines in Bucks were vanadlised, as was the well known lady's slipper in Lancs. At Hartslock, the hybrid Lady X Monkey orchids have had to be fenced off because they were being trampled by admirers. The Somerset Bee X Fly hybrids - the only UK population - had increased numbers of flowering plants thi syear - until three or four of them got trampled on  beause the new plants were below the ones that everyone has directions to, and the visitors don't seem to look anywhere other than the GPS reference they have been given. The only two Small flowered tongue orchids in Cornwall were nearly trampled flat two years ago - by me! - because they grew in a slightly different spot to previous years and were unmarked. Such tiny plants in a large area of grass can easily be missed, as can a 50mm high Ghost orchid on a woodland floor.One person who was taken to the Ghost orchid this year by the finder, told me that he was six feet from the plant but could not see it - it had to be pointed out to him. And he is a good botanist who knows his Ghost orchids very well. Imagine if you had turned up with just directions from a friend? Would you have accidentally trodden on it?Would you have volunteered to warden the site 24 hours a day to ensure the plant came to no harm? It was open for ten days in total, or 240 hours. How many shifts would you have done for free? Are you really that passionate about wanting people to see it?The money that undoubtedly could have been raised from the event could of course have been put back into conservation - but the habitats of the Ghost is actually of little other conservation value, as it doesn't hold a valuable community of other forms of wildlife that deserve conservation funding. So where would the money have been put? The species itself is not of global conservation importance, despite its status in the UK.I and others are working tirelessly to find a Ghost that people CAN go and see, and to encourage the opening up of the closed doors surrounding some botanical anomalies, but while irresponsible people trample and dig, we are fighting a strong current.Under no circumstances would I withold information just for oneupmanship reasons. People have my assurances - and all those who have benefited from information I have given them on British Orchids will back me up on that claim.I sincerely hope that we will all get to see a British Ghost next year and then this debate will go away, but if we get the opportunity I hope all give generously - both time and cash.Sean</blockquote>

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