Apart from the damage done by logging, forest clearance for farming, and the collection of pleiones for export, the most destructive threat to pleiones is Taiwanese people's unwillingness to return "empty-handed" from trips into the mountains. Huge areas have been stripped almost bare of pleiones by tourists and flower merchants.
一葉蘭的殺手，除了人類伐木、開墾林地與外銷，最令人防不勝防的，還是國人「入寶山豈可空手而回」的習慣，山區一葉蘭因此被遊客、花商地毯式採搜一空。