Dear Friends, Tony, Tom and others have spoken clearly for the role of cultivated propagation and distribution of rare plants, yet it seems all the cards are stacked against both the nurseries and the gardeners. Growing any rare plants in commerce has GOT TO reduce the pressure on wild collection. This is just so obvious and a no brainer to make ones head split at disagreement. Almost the ONLY people who demand wild material from a known location are the very botanical gardens who will prevent their distribution. I hate to bemoan the acts of all botanic gardens as there are certainly good conservators, likewise their are nurseries who knowingly dig and sell illegal plants. Both of these are to more or less extent ruled by federal and international regulations that are often meaningless or misguided. I recommend both 'Orchid Fever' by Eric Hansen and The Orchid Thief' by Susan Orleans to get different sides of a similar story of thievery, black market sales, wealthy immoral plant collectors and crazed protectors. The bottom line is that it is extremely difficult to tell a rare, wild collect plant from a validly, legally grown rare plant of the same species. One need only see 'Nursery Grown" Trilliums selling for a dollar or two. This is economically impossible. Plants are often wild collected en masse, stuck in the ground for a season and given new legal papers. A fraud at best. On another hand the extremely onerous regulations make it almost a game and challenge for well meaning individuals to import a plant or bulb "in disguise". EBay has sure made this even more attractive. Add to this an impossible job of inspecting and regulating mail and packages coming into the US and illegal plants surely arrive multiple times per day into the US. Perhaps other countries are more able to inspect and filter illegal plants. I doubt it. I won't even start on CITES regulations which are nearly insane in their logic or national ownership of plant materials which prevents distribution of any plant pending its confirmed value ( See how the Chinese dealt with yellow camellias for example). I have worked on both sides of the conservation table - for years for an international conservation organization which only begrudgingly interacted with a couple expert individuals, but mostly avoided the entire topic of 'home grown. I can't bring this to a point or even suggest a lesson to be learned other than my topic. If all involved in conservation could support, allow and encourage 'Conservation by Propagation' it seems that both individual gardeners would have access to rare and unusual plants and wild plants would have some chance for recovery and preservation. It seems you can't have one without the other. I have used amazing self control in these remarks and it pains me. I can rant real good!! Best Jim -- Dr. James W. Waddick 8871 NW Brostrom Rd. Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711 USA Ph. 816-746-1949 Zone 5 Record low -23F Summer 100F +