Nepenthes Seeds and eBay.

[dashman]

Although it is not illegal via CITES or some other multi-national treaty designed to regulate international commerce to export the seeds it is theft if he does not own the land where the seed pods were collected or have the land owners permission. Public land is not an acceptable location for seed collection without permission as it belongs to the public.

That would be the next question I would ask this fellow.

At least that is my thought on the matter.

[christerb]

Hi,

Being one of the growers who have purchased seed from this seller, I thought I 'd give my thoughts in this matter. I feel it is possible to grow from wild seed without it having a negative impact on the environment, as long as you do it in a responsible way. As swords mentioned, from all the seeds that is being produced by a plant, only a small part of it germinates, and even fewer grow to adult size in the wild.

Having said that, I have had some concerns myself about this particular seed sale. First off is that some species seed that I have seen being offered came from what is believed to be vulnerable species - for instance - N. aristolochioides, and N adnata. Also, in these cases there weren't just a few seed pods being offered each time, but a huge number. I did not feel comfortable with that, thus I stayed away from these.

Another issue for me was that I saw some species from a certain location being offered time after time, which would suggest that the collector returned to collect all the pods as they matured. If not any of the seeds have the possibility to germinated in-situ - then I feel this practice is unacceptable. However, I have also noticed that after the initial rush by the seed buyers the interest from them eventually waned, and often the seed from that species/location disappeared from the seed sale. Personally, I don't think that the seller/collector have any conservation thoughts, but probably the lowered interest made collection of that particular seed not worthwhile anymore.

I could mention that I do grow tc plants also, so even though I have grow many of my plants from seed, it is not an obsession. Conservation wise the number one way to ensure the survival of these plants is to save the natural habitats, thus saving thousands of other plants, as well as animals.

Regards,

Christer

[Dexenthes]

Thank you for the valuable input christer, swords, cheez, dashman -

That is the twist. I understand that the seeds wont all sprout in the wild, and that they potentially can have higher germination in the right hands. But as christer said, there are obviously some serious grey areas in regards to this seller, or sellers in general.

I, too, have noticed aristolochioides on ebay for quite some time, and although he says that he only takes a few seed pods, wouldn't those few sell almost immediately and he would be forced to withdraw the listing?

As it stands, there are seemingly copious amounts of this seed on ebay, and as time goes by the harvest date gets further into the past...

One of my greatest passions (dreams) I've ever had and still have is that of conservation, especially in regards to rainforests and even more specifically in regards to Borneo, Sumatra, Sulawesi. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't yet really contributed, or volunteered, or demanded action from myself in order to help preserve that land that harbors all these plants that we love (and as christer said, so many many more species that probably have yet to be described).

But what I can say is that I haven't bought any of these seeds, because it seems (to me) that it is quite contradictory to the vision that I would love to see more than healthy specimens in a greenhouse, and that is a healthy equatorial rainforest.

I can understand organizations, like BE, AW, EP, etc, doing what they do, collecting plants, under the letter of the law, and professionally cultivating them so that those of us in the states or across the world can buy them responsibly. I would be willing to bet there is a large difference between how they do their affairs and how this seller does his.

If I went to a trip to Sumatra, and posted many pics and you all knew of it, and then suddenly mysteriously offered rare seeds for trade or sale, I have a feeling I would be reprimanded, reported, scolded, or possibly banned!

[Fred]

Christer does hit a good point there. I too have purchased seeds of this vendor (or allegedly the same one) but refrained from obtaining those N. aristolochioides seeds and others because it seemed plain wrong. I must say I wasn't aware of his selling patterns and profile, so I will consider this from now on. On a side note though, there is no such thing bad enough as to result in absolutely no good in this case, at least from my understanding...To be clearer, I believe that the other side of the medal would be that if germinating these seeds results in many neps reaching maturity, then the benefit of disposing of new genes to complement the available gene pool has merit from a conservation point of view, of course if you are willing to share with fellow hobbyists and keep rigorous record on the origins of the plants. I can't recall the HL specie that almost got wiped out of a particular mountain, to which it is endemic, due to a volcanic eruption, but it's events like that and/or anthropic disturbances that can have negative effects on wild populations, so where exactly do we draw the line between strict natural conservation (''let them be'') and conservation through cultivation (which thus maybe optimizing germination and offspring production)? I must say I have no definite opinion on this subject myself. However, in this case, the seller's collecting practices seem to overshadow the optimistic perspective of conservation through cultivation quite a bit...

Fred

[Dexenthes]

However, in this case, the seller's collecting practices seem to overshadow the optimistic perspective of conservation through cultivation quite a bit...

Fred

My thoughts exactly!