Hi All: Very good comments and discussion by everyone on this topic. From time to time I request seeds on behalf of Chicago Botanic Garden from the PBS seed and bulb exchange. In return, I've offered up seeds/bulbs that were excess from the Garden's program in return. Invariably the staff member on whose behalf I've requested the plant propagules contacts the donor directly to obtain the passport information (wild collected or from plants in cultivation?; location and environmental conditions, etc.). I also request seeds or bulbs for my own personal use at home. The information provided by Dell and/or the donors is sufficient. The issue of rare and endangered is much less clear. At Chicago Botanic Garden we have plants that were obtained before they were listed as being of conservation concern. Because our collections are documented, if we chose to we could approach the US Fish and Wildlife Service for a permit to legally propagate and sell them - we haven't; but legally we could. A number of taxa are of conservation concern in their native habitats but are relatively wide spread in cultivation - a couple of well known examples include trees like Metasequoia glyptostroboides, Ginkgo biloba, Araucaria araucana, etc. To muddy the waters even further, some taxa are of limited distribution (of conservation concern) in one political unit (country, province, state) but widespread in a neighboring political unit (not listed of conservation concern). This is particularly noticeable in the USA where one state will list a taxa as being of conservation concern but not the surrounding states. If there is even a remote chance the plants may be useful at anytime in the future for conservation or reintroduction purposes I suggest documenting the provenance as completely as possible - even if this means contacting donors privately offline to obtain the information. As an example, seeds of Sophora toromiro were donated to Missouri Botanical Garden by a relative of a Chilean diplomat long before RBG Kew began efforts to begin a captive breeding program to reintroduce it into its native range. Without the information provided by the donor at the time of donation no one would have suspected these plants were unique and highly valuable. Boyce Tankersley Manager of Living Plant Documentation Chicago Botanic Garden 1000 Lake Cook Road Glencoe, IL 60022 tel 847-835-6841 fax 847-835-1635