Tuesday, April 19, 2016
OSMT Meeting – Location: Cheekwood
Francisco Miranda – Miranda Orchids
7 pm Presentation: “Brazilian Orchid Habitats – Amazon River Basin” (plant sales & refreshments at 6:30 pm)
Location: Cheekwood Botanical Gardens – directions, 1200 Forrest Park Drive Nashville Tennessee 37205
Francisco Miranda will be our speaker in April. He will talk about orchid habitats of the Amazon. Having lived there for four years, he has visited most of the more typical habitats in the region. He will be discussing the different main ecosystems, their particularities, and orchid species typical of each. This presentation is not limited to a particular group of orchids, and in fact the idea is to show the many different types of orchids as possible including orchids of Rio de Janeiro.
**Special note: Francisco will be selling plants at the meeting**
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Francisco has been growing orchids since 1979, the same year he completed his degree in Biology, and began his taxonomic studies on the orchid family. He obtained his master’s degree in 1985 with his thesis “Section Cattleyodes of the genus Laelia”. He spent many years doing field research on Brazilian orchids resulting in many new species being described and published two books and several scientific papers.
In 1996, he was the Program Chairman for the 15th World Orchid Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For many years Miranda went at least twice a year to the United States and other countries with the main purpose of giving lectures to Orchid Societies. From 1986 to 2000 he had an orchid nursery in Rio de Janeiro, Orquidário Boa Vista, specializing in producing superior cultivars of Brazilian orchid species. Presently, he owns Miranda Orchids, a Haines City, Florida-based Nursery, where high-quality species in the Cattleya alliance are being produced continuing Orquidário Boa Vista’s tradition.
Since 2001, he’s been a qualified Taxonomic Authority for the American Orchid Society, specializing in the determination of Brazilian orchids, mainly of the Cattleya alliance.
A gifted lecturer, he has concentrated on speaking primarily to conservation minded orchid societies. His overwhelming knowledge of his native Brazil, coupled with his insights about orchid observation in native habitat make this presentation one you will not want to miss if you like seeing the beauty of orchids in nature.