I am for a weekend in France and was going to visit Marcel Lecoufle's orchid nursery today. I had not checked for ages, and the website was down. Then I found this on a french orchid forum:

Marcel Lecoufle, an orchid institution in Boissy Saint LĂ©ger, will close at the end of December 2011 and has not found a buyer. There are still many plants in the greenhouses. Some of these plants were acquired by Botanical Gardens (Canada, Switzerland and the Natural History Museum of Paris). The rest of the plants, if they are not sold before closing will be lost and probably destroyed or abandoned in greenhouses unmaintained.

Several days to visit may be organized for orchid societies to buy plants, but it is also possible to visit the greenhouses while there is still time to buy plants. Rates are greatly reduced, and all plants (including stock plants, and the famous red labels) are for sale.

This is a real pity. I hope that some of the stock plants were not actually destroyed. They had a really fantastic collections of Angraecoids and plants you could not get anywhere else. It seems that not just in the UK, orchid institutions are dissapearing.

Very sad and so wasteful. I hope that he manged to find a good home for them.

Lars
Try putting Vacherot & Lecoufle in a search engine they are still at
29 Rue de Valenton, Boissy-Saint-LĂ©ger and have an open weekend this weekend!

Norma

Dear Sir
Your information concerns the company Marcel Lecoufle, closed in décember 2011.
Our company, Vacherot & Lecoufle, founded in 1886, has not closed as you can see through our website www.lorchidee.fr

Sincerely yours
Philippe Lecoufle

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K