orchid, once part of a Cites shipment to the New York Botanical Garden, in bloom again..
“Everyone hears ‘rescue centre’ and they imagine an emergency room with beeping monitors and IV bags,” says Marc Hachadourian, the bearded and jovial director of glasshouse horticulture and senior curator of orchids at the NYBG.
Hachadourian is glad to participate in the rescue centre programme, but after 22 years at the NYBG, he wishes the plants weren’t still coming: “Because what you’re seeing is just a tiny fraction of an incredible volume of plants that are being shipped and traded around the world.” It’s difficult to assess the size of the illegal plant trade, but the combined market value of the illegal logging, fishing and wildlife tradePlant trafficking takes place in a few ways.