The Calvert County Natural Resources Division is partnering with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the North American Orchid Conservation Center (NAOCC) to document orchid species found in Calvert County for the purpose of conserving native orchids found in the U.S. and Canada.

The Calvert Stewards volunteers will identify locations of orchids so that trained collectors can obtain photographs, viable seeds, fruits, leaf samples, and root samples with the aim of conserving North American orchid species. In special situations whole plants will be collected for voucher specimens to be stored in the Botany Department of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

NAOCC activities focus on establishing collections of seeds and orchid mycorrhizal fungi, developing protocols to propagate and restore all native orchid species and developing an interactive website to provide the public with a mechanism to identify and learn everything that is known about our native orchids.