Next Meeting is on Thursday, February 13^th, 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm

Contra Costa Water District Building Board Room
 1331 Concord Ave. Concord, CA

Ron Parsons: 'Orchids of China'

     Ron Parsons has been growing orchids for going on 40 years and has been interested in and has grown species orchids for most of that time. He loves to photograph orchids and other flowers whenever he can, whether it be in collections or trips to see them in nature. Ron has approximately 40,000 digital images, most of which are orchids, and has a slide library of flower photographs that exceeds 100,000 images. He has about 2500 published photos that have appeared in magazines, periodicals, journals, and books. Ron has co-authored three books, all with Mary Gerritsen. The first two are called 'Masdevallias, Gems of the Orchid World' and 'Calochortus, Mariposa Lilies and their Relatives'  and a third book has just been published in January of 2014, a two-volume set called 'A Compendium of Miniature Orchid Species'. The last book has nearly 1200 pages, 1800 photographs, and features more than 500 species.  
      Ron will be speaking on his orchid trip to the province of Sichuan in western China (known to most Americans as Szechwan). In 2013 Ron made his second trip to Sichuan. "In 2012 I went with my co-author, Mary Gerritsen on a tour led by slipper orchid specialist Holger Perner and his wife, Wenqing, to see various Cypripedium species (the temperate species of slipper orchids, found only in the northern hemisphere, and generally in colder climes) from June 09-23. I enjoyed that so immensely, so we signed up again for the 2013 tour, from June 17- July 01 to see these amazing orchids at different sites this time. We saw a good number of orchids as well as numerous other beautiful flowers and amazing scenery. This talk will feature the beauty of China seen on this trip."

Copies of Ron’s new book 'Miniature Orchid Species' by Ron Parsons and Mary Gerritsen will be available for purchase. Find more information about this book here.