"I came from the mountains with orchids and grass ..." This is a song that many people were familiar with when they were children, but if you do it again now, you will be imprisoned.
In May of this year, Leshan police successfully cracked a case that seriously endangered national key protected plants and confiscated more than 2.1 million wild orchids, involving more than 2 million yuan, and 12 suspects were arrested. When I was a child, there were wild orchids all over the mountains and plains. Why aren’t they dug up now? Everything starts with a "bubble"...
Once upon a time, orchids were very expensive! The price of one pot can buy a villa
Orchids have a long history of connection with Chinese culture. Many plants of the genus Orchid are known as "gentlemen" by the Chinese because of their beautiful shapes and fragrant but not strong fragrance. They have always been favored by the Chinese. favorite.
By 2008, people's enthusiasm for orchids has reached an unprecedented level, which can be seen from the sky-high prices of some high-quality orchids. A pot of rare orchids named Mercedes-Benz Peony sold for a sky-high price of 1.8 million yuan. At that time, hundreds of pots of high-quality orchids were displayed in an orchid exhibition, and the total value was hundreds of millions of yuan.
You can even see some "amazing" prices during this period, such as the pot in the picture above. The owner of the flower at the time said that he felt that the orchids were priceless in his heart, so he marked this comfortable price.
Well, the reason is so good that it makes people "speechless". Anyway, in those years, it was not uncommon for orchids to be sky-high prices. Why is a small pot of orchids so expensive?
First of all, many of these sky-high-priced orchids are mutant varieties. This is partly due to scarcity, but the other reason is artificial hype. Several well-funded dealers have invested hundreds of millions to dominate the orchid market. For example, a banker first purchases a batch of orchids at a price of 20,000 per seedling, and then quotes 40,000 to the outside world. Then a partner banker buys them for 40,000, quotes 60,000 to the outside world, and another partner banker purchases them again.
Repeatedly, it creates the illusion that the price of one or a few orchids has soared. Through media promotion, it will soon attract a large number of speculative hot money to pour in. will eventually cause a huge bubble in orchid prices, far deviating from its original value. value.
However, a few years later, the orchid bubble burst, and for a time people were in mourning. During this period, some people were burdened with huge debts and eventually went to a dead end. Although the bubble burst, the story of orchid is far from over.
When I was a child, there were wild orchids all over the mountains and plains. Why weren’t they dug up?
Orchid, also known as Orchidaceae , is actually one of the largest families of plants. There are 700 genera and 2,000 species in the whole family. It can be said that orchids are not rare plants, let alone protected plants.
However, in September 2021, after the new " List of National Key Protected Wild Plants " was announced, orchid plants that were not included in the list suddenly became the most protected plants. The "List" revised by includes 292 species of orchids, which is equivalent to one out of every four protected plants being an orchid. The status of orchids has suddenly risen sharply. Why does the country suddenly want to include so many wild orchids in the protection category?
It turns out that although the bubble in the orchid market has burst, good orchids can still be sold at a good price. At the same time, taking advantage of the rich variation of wild orchids, many excellent mutant plants can also be cultivated.
Coupled with the business of digging wild orchids, it is originally a white wolf. Driven by profit, the phenomenon of digging wild orchids is getting more and more serious in various places. What's more, in order to obtain precious orchid varieties, even the orchid's origin is He carried back all the soil in the hope that orchids would grow from the soil.
Wild orchid seedlings dug up by their roots
At the same time, the deforestation of forests in recent years has also accelerated the demise of wild orchids. People who don’t know about orchids may not know that the growth of orchids actually requires special conditions. Orchids can be divided into three categories according to the conditions required for growth. One is epiphytic orchids , which need to be attached to tree trunks or rocks; The second is saprophytic orchids, which live in decaying plant bodies underground; the third is terrestrial orchids, which grow in humus soil mixed with fallen leaves.
The unique growth environment requirements of orchids determine that most orchids cannot live without forests. Therefore, many wild orchid resources have been exhausted due to deforestation and artificial excavation.
In Sichuan, which is rich in orchid resources, 60% of wild orchid resources have disappeared. In the 1960s, many counties and cities could see a large number of wild orchids in the forest less than a hundred kilometers away from the city. Nowadays, it is difficult to see them even hundreds of kilometers away from the city. Find traces of wild orchids.
