October 2017 – Ron Parsons

Ron ParsonsWe are happy to welcome back Ron Parsons to our society. Ron will be speaking on the Orchids of Sichuan, China. In June of 2012, Ron was fortunate enough to attend a tour in the province of Sichuan, China led by the late Holger Perner and his wife, Wenqing to see Cypripediums and other native orchids in habitat. They traveled through the northern reaches of the province, seeing some of the most spectacular scenery and wildflowers Ron has ever seen. They visited two World Heritage Sites of such natural beauty, and traveled through different ethnic regions (although most of the people in this area are Tibetan), and the tour of six visitors had a truly incredible adventure. Ron had such a fantastic time that he joined the tour for a second visit in 2013! He will be describing his experiences from the trip and show us many beautiful pics of orchids he observed during his visit.

Ron Parsons has been growing orchids for more than 40 years, and has been interested in species orchids for most of that time. Ron loves to photograph orchids and most other flowers whenever he can, whether it be on trips to see them in nature or in collections. He loves to travel to see orchids in the wild, and does so as often as possible. Ron has close to 60,000 digital images, most of which are of orchids, and still retains a slide library that exceeds 100,000 botanical images. He has almost 3500 published photos that have appeared in magazines, periodicals, journals and books. Ron has co-authored three botanical books, all with Mary E. Gerritsen. The first two, published by Timber Press, are Masdevallias, Gems of the Orchid World and Calochortus, Mariposa Lilies and their Relatives. Most recently, the third book, a large, luxurious, two-volume set, A Compendium of Miniature Orchid Species was published by Redfern Natural History Productions in January of 2014. The latter has nearly 1200 pages, 1800 photographs, and features more than 500 species.

The plant table will be comprised of orchids donated to the society by a former member of POS.