White listing

Christiaan van Schalkwyk cvschalkwyk@lantic.net
Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:48:57 PST


>
> In other words, if you have a world class collection of species tulips
> or Oxalis in your back yard, these should be included somehow to make
> the white list as beneficial as possible. How they plan to outreach
> and discover this outstanding wealth of plant life-- by some accounts
> more diverse than what is grown in all our botanical gardens
> combined-- is anyone's guess.


I think the UK has got a nice system with regards to listing these wonderful 
species grown by individuals. I' m not sure what they call it (registered 
collection?, maybe someone in Britain can tell us more), but it basically 
boils down to have a list of your collection "added" to what is grown in the 
Botanical gardens, and your collection becomes part of the conservation 
effort of  UK (Kew?). This would normally be a family or group of species, 
eg. Crinum, Oxalis, or Conophytum. I think the Royal family have a 
collection of trees. If  our collections could be "registered" without too 
much red tape attached to it, it could increase the knowledge base and the 
value of our collections.
In South Africa (depending on the province) if you want to run a nursery you 
have to provide a list of all the indigenous plants you grow, and their 
quantities (an arduous task, especially as species like Lithops and Antimima 
are not regarded as one plant per root, but one plant per head !). But 
unfortunately these list are not available to anyone other than nature 
conservation, and their sole object is to see whether plants where collected 
illegally from nature. If these lists could be collated, a much better 
indication would be given of what plants are already in cultivation, and 
where. The burden of counting all your plants every two years versus the 
commercial value if you are only a small time collector/grower unfortunately 
often does not add up.
Unfortunately lists (white and black) do not always make space for various 
growing conditions. What is a pest for me is a pet for you, and vice versa. 
We have list of trees which we are not alowed to grow - and these can be 
invasive in some place, but in many places they are ideal trees, and will 
never escape from outside your garden, and because they are invasive in the 
south of the country - were the rainfall is 1000 plus mm per year, they are 
not alowed north-west (100mm rain per year).

Christiaan 


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