expensive seeds

Since Worsleya seeds started becoming quite a bit more available this
decade, the going rate for most offerings has been in the $3 to $5 per
seed range. I've seen it reach as high as $10 per seed. I have never
seen it get as low as the $1 per seed price that a New Zealander was
charging back in the 1990s. Clivia seeds have a much wider, but similar
range of pricing. For example, I don't think you'll find yellow-flowered
Clivia seeds for less than $1 to $2 per seed. On the other hand some of
the now most desirable Clivia seeds can get really expensive. (Although
in my opinion, some people just charge a lot more for their seed than
others do. I know a few breeders who want $10 to $20 per seed for some
of their best crosses which aren't any better or in some cases look
identical to those of other breeders who only charge $5 per seed. And
some Chinese highest quality seeds, which might not seem desirable to
many Westerner aesthetic sensibilities, can reach astronomical
[tulipmania-level] prices.)

Some people have been able to make a killing on seeds prices by having
chosen the right expensive Clivia varieties to have purchased, meaning,
*now*, there are a lot of people worldwide who want seeds from that
variety and are willing to pay for it. But you can't always tell ahead
of time. And purposely pollinated Clivias tend to produce a lot more
seeds than open-pollinated flowers do. One guy on the Clivia list just
reported 378 seeds from one umbel of some cross that he made. Here's an
eBay listing for seeds from a green-flowered Clivia that the seller
recently sold 2 seeds of for $50 per seed!
<http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll/…>

In any case, $108 for 25 seeds is a little over $4 per seed, so hardly
unusual at all for Worsleya. In this case, if the winner wins at this
price, he or she could easily offer all of them on the Worsleya list at
$5 per seed and sell all of them in 24 hours.

--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USDA Zone 10a

Diane Whitehead wrote:

Tomas reported on an eBay offer of 25 seeds of Worsleya from a seller
in Brazil. There have been 11 bids, and the high bid is currently at
$108. These are obviously very much in demand. Maybe the bidders
should join together and share the seeds, rather than bidding each
other up.

Clivia is another genus with expensive seeds, though just of the very
uncommon ones. I wondered if I could support any of my bad habits
(like buying seeds) by buying an expensive Clivia and selling its
seeds each year. My old original orange one had two stalks of a dozen
flowers each, but only four seedpods are forming. A rare one might
have even fewer pods. I haven't cut a pod open to see how many seeds
are inside, but I don't see this as a way to make a lot of money.

Diane Whitehead
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

On 1-Jun-09, at 10:31 AM, Tomas Sandberg wrote:

This is really sick more than 100vbUSD for 25 seeds of Worsleya!

Look here: http://cgi.ebay.com/Worsleya-procera-seeds-RARE_W0…

--
--Lee Poulsen Pasadena, California, USDA Zone 10a