Every gardener a curator
Adam Fikso (Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:11:47 PDT)

The idea of conserving species in zoos and gardens is certainly not new and
I think it's already given us examples of species that hardly exist if at
all, in the wild, but which are cared for in gardens and zoos. I am
thinking in particular of the Pere David's deer, extinct except for those
which survived as a result of being cared for in the gardens of a Chinese
emperor, and now also live in zoos in various parts of the world.

Surely the same wiill shortly be true of many plants, which many of you may
know more of than I-- and here I'm thinking of Welwitschia as only one
example, and Iris susiana which is probably not a true species but a variant
of I. kirkwoodii. Iris basaltica has been regarded as extinct more than
once, but I'm fairly sure that it's still at the Krak des Chevaliers. just
not blooming every year, thereby rendering itsefl invisible. There was an
iris designated as aff. sofarana which was collected in 1923 by the Field
expedition which existed only as an herbarium specimen and in field notes
and is now gone having turned to dust, which grew roughly between Abu Ghraib
and Balat Sinjar near the Mosul road which is now paved over. And I lost
my slide of it due to a basement flood. Let us hope that nature continues to
be prodigal to help us to be better custodians of what we have around us,
our own kind and other kinds.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jacob Knecht" <jacobknecht@gmail.com>
To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 11:35 PM
Subject: Re: [pbs] Every gardener a curator