>> This small, unassuming greenhouse, just on the edge of the Ball State campus is more than meets the eye.

The Rinard Orchid Greenhouse is home to a thriving collection of exceptional proportions.

>> We are one of the largest collegiate orchid collections here in the United States.

We have about 2,000 different species of orchid throughout the greenhouse.

Some are rare and endangered.

>> It's a refuge for those rare and endangered plants that have been confiscated from the environmentally devastating illegal orchid trade.

>> So we're one of 80 places in the United States that if an illegal orchid was brought over international lines, we could get a call to get that orchid to help rehabilitate it and conserve it for future study and research.

>> Walking through the collection puts you up close and personal with a lot of plants, carnivorous plants, edible plants, but mostly the stars of the show here are orchids.

Across three rooms, that range from warm rain forest to cool cloud forest, you can find a dizzying variety of orchids, each uniquely adapted to its environment.

>> So an orchid is one of the most ancient species of flowering plants that we have.

They are basically master manipulators of their pollinators.

When a pollinator comes to pollinate it, their big, beautiful display is arranged in a way that it is going to make that pollinator go exactly where that flower wants it to go.

So there's the big labellum, which is the big, really showy petal of the orchid.

That is made intricately to attract the pollinator.

In the lady's slipper orchid specifically, that big pouch, they want bugs to think there's something in there.

So they want the bugs to fall into this landing pad so that they go up, back behind here.

You see these little flaps?

They'll open up for the bug.

That red right there is the pollen.

And under here is the ovule.

So when the bug comes up and out there, it will get that pollen, and it will shove it into the ovule right there.

One of their special adaptations is called mimicry.

So I do have some species in there that will look like the female species of their pollinator and they are basically catfishing the males into interacting with them.

They're all about the manipulation of that pollinator.

>> The collection may focus on orchids, but that's not all.

It's a veritable garden of delights, including some fauna a mongst the flora, and some plants with big appetites.

>> My favorite plant overall -- I like to say that they are the ones that got me this job -- are carnivorous plants.

They naturally grow in very poor nutrient soil, so like bogs or on cliffsides.

They are not getting a lot from their roots.

So they developed the adaptation of being able to eat bugs.

And I also like to come back here because the neotropical pitcher plants are back here.

So these are specialized leaf structures.

They're supposed to hold rainwater as it falls down.

That water -- after I tip it out.

That water is filled with that digestive enzyme.

So any bug that would fall into one of these cups, in here is so slick they would not be able to get out.

So then that water starts eating them, and then it's fed right back to the plant.

So you can kind of think of them as outside stomachs.

>> It's a one-of-a-kind collection, but it's more than just a greenhouse.

It's a place for the next generation of botanists to get their hands dirty.

>> You've got to be careful with them, but you can -- all of those little guys in there are the seeds, and you can just see how densely packed these orchids are.

My name is Peyton Rogers, and I'm one of Ball State's greenhouse attendants, and right now I'm working on mostly just seed extraction, and we're kinda just like scraping these guys out and putting them in this sterilized cup right here, to where we're then storing into our little seed bank that we are trying to establish here.

It's a really fun opportunity to be a part of, and I hope to be here until I graduate, which is about another year.

But we focus on a lot of youth education, because we believe that if we teach the younger generation, we can help promote more conservation efforts in America.

>> And they've built a new space to teach kids about the natural world.

>> We opened the Environmental Education Center in 2022.

It's nicknamed the Nature Lab to be a little more approachable to public and kiddos.

This space houses some hands-on wildlife opportunities for kiddos.

We have Beaker our box turtle.

We have native eastern tiger salamanders, native frogs and toads, and our beehive.

>> And educating the next generation is more important now than ever.

>> We are already losing so many species out in the wild, and because of climate change, habitat destruction and invasive species, we're losing a lot of orchids that are native.

And then over collecting just kind of adds to the issue.

Going out to the wild, taking it, you're actually removing it from an entire fungi network that it needed to survive.

Obviously, it's not going to do as well, and it's most likely not going to make it.

>> Rinard Orchid Greenhouse provides educational opportunities, a sanctuary for endangered plants and a wonderful place to soak in some nature, and perhaps some much needed perspective.

>> The one takeaway that I like to give everybody who visits is that the world is so much bigger and complex than we think.

There's a lot that goes into even a tiny little flower that's less than a half inch.