Tom Mitchell's Response to Kathryn Kennedy
Jtlehmann@aol.com (Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:41:39 PDT)

<<Some of us are working very hard to create cultivated populations of
threatened or potentially threatened plant genera such as Cyclamen, Galanthus
and Trilium. These efforts would be far more valuable from a biodiversity
conservation perspective if the plants were raised from wild-collected seed
of known provenance. This would result in genetically varied cultivated
populations available in future for reintroduction.>>

Tom:

Thank you for very eloquently saying what (I think) most of us would like
to say but don't know how. I am happy to have you on the front line of
this discussion.

For reintroduction to happen, the plant has to have had existed there in
the first place. However, due to land being consumed for whatever reason,
plants often cannot be reintroduced. So they are placed in environments
where they were not "native" at this time.

As Kathryn said:

<<> the plants, people deriving material in cultivation so that it no
longer has

informal

I would think the extra genetic "risk" would be wonderful for populations
as it would increase diversity. I think Nhu made a better comment on or
argument for this.

Plus, if one were to introduce plants from cultivation to the wild, in
locations where the plants were not growing, that seems to be just what Kathryn
is saying she doesn't want. Were not the introduced plants absent from
that location for a reason? What about soil type of the introduced plants,
micro-organisms, the existing soil...it goes on and on. So when my fishing
cabin was built in north-central Minnesota, was I wrong to relocate, from
the building site to elsewhere on the property, the native orchids and other
plants I deemed worthy? Even though they were not plants from
cultivation, in my opinion as an "amateur," Kathryn implies "no."

Cheers!

--Jerry Lehmann
Olathe, KS, USA