Sponsored by the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, the Orchid Society of Great Britain gained a Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show for their exhibit � �Orchids in a Natural Setting�. Sri Lanka is the home to more than 170 species of orchid, 74 of them found nowhere else in the world, some flown over especially for this show including a new hybrid orchid named after Her Majesty the Queen.

On her tour of Chelsea, Her Majesty the Queen visited the display and was introduced to Sanjika Perera, director of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau � UK & Ireland, the High Commissioner for Sri Lanka and his wife and Mr. Wanigatunga, the horticultural adviser to the President of Sri Lanka who presented the Queen with a bouquet of flowers of Dendrobium Queen Elizabeth II, a new hybrid orchid created by Mr. Wanigatunga and named after the Queen especially for the Chelsea Flower Show.

The Orchid Society of Great Britain exhibit included two Guard Stones, replicas of the ones standing at the gateways to the ancient Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka with vanilla orchids cultivated on plantations in Sri Lanka displayed alongside many rare orchid and hybrids grown by Society members.

According to Sanjika Perera: "We are delighted to be able to name a new hybrid orchid after the Queen and present it to her in partnership with the Orchid Society of Great Britain at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. As peace in Sri Lanka was announced by the President on the same day, the timing is ideal to promote the variety of natural wonders Sri Lanka has to offer, including gardens like Peradeniya in Kandy and the virgin rain forests in particular, Sinharaja."

New garden tours were launched as a result of the decision to sponsor the exhibit and many celebrities at the show showed a great interest in visiting Sri Lanka including Moira Stuart, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Jo Brand and Phillip Schofield.

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Note to Editors: The OSGB exhibit featured a river running through a moss covered tunnel-like cave and emerging down waterfalls into a lake, with a central 3 metre tree trunk festooned with Vandas on an island in the middle. The shores of the lake and the mountain through which the cave ran were covered with an enormous range of plants from the members of the Society, banks of Phalaenopsis, and colourful Renanthera, Vanda, Aranda, Mokara, Arachnis, Dendrobium etc. from Asia; there were Lycaste, Ida, Anguloa, Masdevallia, Dracula, Encyclia, Epidendrum, Prosthechea and many more, from Latin America; Disa and Angraecum from Africa; Dactylorhiza and Cypripedium from Europe and North America, with the Vanilla planifolia from Sri Lanka, covered in seed pods, arranged around and over everything.

For any further press information, please contact: Julia Clark / Greg Dawson Henry Oakeley Representation Plus Orchid Society of Great Britain Telephone: 020 8877 4503 /4504 Telephone: 020 8658 0358 julia@representationplus.co.uk Mobile: 0787 2016273 greg@representationplus.co.uk henry.oakeley@virgin.net www.srilanka.travel Roy White Orchid Society of Great Britain Mobile: 07980 630235 royjoewhite@hotmail.com