Trade in farmed species. This is often considered the best approach by conservationists but does not always work. When the international ban on trade in wild species of the slipper orchid Paphiopedilum came into effect several countries also banned artificially propagated species. Consequently in Australia trade in Paphopoedilum delenatii, which has not been collected in the wild for over 50 years, was also banned despite the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of artificially propagated plants in cultivation, all of which were derived from a single specimen collected decades ago. We must be careful that this situation does not happen to bulbous species, as well.
Many bulbous plants are endangered but often they prove easy to cultivate and propagate.
Examples of such species are Gladiolus aureus, G. watermeyeri, G. citrinus, Moraea loubseri, M. atropunctata, and Ixia maculata, which have been saved from the brink of extinction by being brought into cultivation.