So recently my significant other got into raising Poison Dart Frogs as pets. In that hobby, it is extremely taboo to keep frogs of different "morphs" together. Morphs are from different regions, and when they breed, the resulting progeny is "unpure." They worry about these getting back into the trading pool, and ruining the purity of the morphs. This was really interesting and got me thinking. In our hobby, people *try* to mix their Nepenthes to get new, interesting, and hardier plants. The orchid growing hobby is already decades into a similar trend, to the point where it's hard to nearly impossible to find a vendor that sells pure species anymore. This is especially true with plants that lend themselves to intergeneric crosses. My mother, who grew plenty of orchids in her day, gave me a couple species that simply *aren't* sold anymore, and a few hybrids that have "gone out of fashion" and aren't produced.
Seeing what the orchid hobby is now, and what is happening with Nepenthes growers concerns me a bit. I find it harder and harder to find Nepenthes species available on all the retail websites I use to frequent. I've been searching for months of a simple N. ventricosa, but so few places, if any, carry that anymore. Has anyone else noticed this? The rise of ever more complicated hybrids while fewer and fewer sellers provide species plants? If so, does it concern you at all? I'm not advocating that we all become purists and never make hybrids, like the Dart Froggers, but I feel like part of the role we assume when we grow these plants is that of conservationists, and we have some duty to keep plenty species specimens around should they ever be lost in the wild.
What're your thoughts?
Seeing what the orchid hobby is now, and what is happening with Nepenthes growers concerns me a bit. I find it harder and harder to find Nepenthes species available on all the retail websites I use to frequent. I've been searching for months of a simple N. ventricosa, but so few places, if any, carry that anymore. Has anyone else noticed this? The rise of ever more complicated hybrids while fewer and fewer sellers provide species plants? If so, does it concern you at all? I'm not advocating that we all become purists and never make hybrids, like the Dart Froggers, but I feel like part of the role we assume when we grow these plants is that of conservationists, and we have some duty to keep plenty species specimens around should they ever be lost in the wild.
What're your thoughts?