Julie Radford
speaker
161 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 14 Aug
Julie Radford’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Its leaf length is measured, its width is measured, and then a bit of the soil is cleared off, and the tuber width is measured as well.
I'm going to just dig down in here.
Delicate operation.
I don't want to hurt the plant or its tuber.
Now this one's down really deep so I'm going to twist this pot a little and squeeze down the bottom there.
This is a Caledonia xanthocila, which is the yellow-lipped spider orchid, and it's one of the rarest plants that we have.
There are only three that we have here in the Loddon Mallee region in existence.
Fifty-one.
They only have a single leaf, which is quite small, two.
And they have this delicate little underground tuber part that stores all of the nutrients for the plant.
It's like a little miniature potato.
Every year, the plant goes dormant at different times of the year.
And while it's in its dormancy, the orchid is replenishing all of its nutrients in its tuber.
The orchid actually requires the assistance
of a particular species of fungi in the soil now this is a microscopic fungi you can't really see it with the naked eye and this fungi inoculates the seed when the seed hits the ground if the seed lands somewhere where the fungi isn't present to then the seed doesn't germinate and it's actually wasted it won't last for very long because it doesn't have an endosperm so it doesn't store any nutrients
4.5.
Then if you're fortunate enough to have the plant germinated in the wild, it needs to make it through its first couple of years of life so that it can produce a nice, good, strong tuber.
And then after that, it's on its way.
And it might take a few years before the plant's actually big enough to flower.
When it does flower, then there's this amazing relationship that takes place with its pollinating species.
Showing 41–60 of 161 · page 3 of 9
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