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Forum for Epiphytic Myrmecophytes

Extremely rare species in cultivation.


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Due to the efforts of a very few persons that at some considerable expense travel to the habitats of certain new myrmecophytic (and zoophytic) species, there are some rare and deservedly somewhat costly opportunities to acquire authentic living specimens. My personal opinion is that such early opportunities should be taken up by botanical institutions such as Frankfurt Palmengarten, Kew, Leiden, and Nancy  Botanical Gardens etc. Especially if they have the skills to market (advertise) their new acquisitions in order to attract more visitors and of course are able to eventually propagate and distribute their new taxa. 

 

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Derrick:

I think you will find that at this particular juncture at least one of the BGs you mention will/can not share nor "purchase" anything covered under existing multilateral biodiversity conservation agreements with privateers, nor indeed with other public BGs that do not share their rigid accession and redistribution protocols. Their position on this topic is by no means unique. Hopefully they will find ways acceptable to the burrocrats on high to establish shadow collections of these taxa in their own institutions soon
 

Please see: http://www.kew.org/sites/default/files/ABSPolicy.pdf

 

The current trend visible on this forum suggests that several private growers' hydnophytine collections in Asia, the EU and the US are outpacing their public counterparts holds a great deal of promise, particularly since some of us share the success of our propagation efforts with more progressively-minded public gardens now. One would hope that the future will see improvements in the transfer of germplasm between more collections.

Cheers,

J

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Hello everybody!

 

In fact it is the problem that many BGs have certain policies on plant exchange as given by the BGCI. The only exchange takes place between member gardens and normally the only way to get new plants from "outside" is by a scientific collection within a research program. Sometimes the collection data seem to be much more important than the very plant. Purchase/exchange from private or commercial  - no way!

It is also sad to see many collections growing in BGs in a bad condition. Botanists come and go and the plants their research was about are in focus until research has finished. Finally not every person working in a BG is a keen gardener. It is up to a handful enthusiastic horticulturists to build up and keep a fine collection on e.g. myrmecophytic plants. Well, if cooperation is possible, why not...

 

To me it seems to be a better choice to have some private collectors, who know well their plants and cultivate them appropriately. 

 

Best wishes,

Arne

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Bonjour

 

One would hope that the future will see improvements in the transfer of germplasm between more collections.

 

 I hope, for instant , just , some of our friends proposed  free swap  drupe , rare or commons anyway

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Hi Jay,

 

I think you will find that at this particular juncture at least one of the BGs you mention will/can not share nor "purchase" anything covered under existing multilateral biodiversity conservation agreements with privateers, nor indeed with other public BGs that do not share their rigid accession and redistribution protocols. Their position on this topic is by no means unique. Hopefully they will find ways acceptable to the burrocrats on high to establish shadow collections of these taxa in their own institutions soon
 

Please see: http://www.kew.org/sites/default/files/ABSPolicy.pdf

 

Luckily, not every BG are as strict as Kew are. And many botanist-gardeners are also plants' lovers and collectors (as I do).

 

The current trend visible on this forum suggests that several private growers' hydnophytine collections in Asia, the EU and the US are outpacing their public counterparts holds a great deal of promise, particularly since some of us share the success of our propagation efforts with more progressively-minded public gardens now. One would hope that the future will see improvements in the transfer of germplasm between more collections.

 

I agree with this last point. As many BGs make only exchanges with other BGs, only a few easily grown ant-plants turn in every garden. If we continue this shedule, it could be really difficult to obtain new living material.

 

In fact, the BGCI give us guidelines to have "clean" collections. So, to do well, new accessions should come from other BG or from scientific expeditions with appropriate harvest-permits. Thus, many Bgs (as well as many other institutions) reduces drastically their budget: actually, Kew cut 600 jobs! Moreover, it's more and more difficult to obtain permit for many country (South-East Asia, South Africa, Australia, nearly all America...) But BGCI also ask BGs of the world to conserve about 25% of the worldwide biodiversity.

It's completely contradictory!

 

Hello everybody!

 

In fact it is the problem that many BGs have certain policies on plant exchange as given by the BGCI. The only exchange takes place between member gardens and normally the only way to get new plants from "outside" is by a scientific collection within a research program. Sometimes the collection data seem to be much more important than the very plant. Purchase/exchange from private or commercial  - no way!

It is also sad to see many collections growing in BGs in a bad condition. Botanists come and go and the plants their research was about are in focus until research has finished. Finally not every person working in a BG is a keen gardener. It is up to a handful enthusiastic horticulturists to build up and keep a fine collection on e.g. myrmecophytic plants. Well, if cooperation is possible, why not...

 

To me it seems to be a better choice to have some private collectors, who know well their plants and cultivate them appropriately. 

 

Best wishes,

Arne

 

I agree with many points here... But here, I see also the theory and the practical. I've visted many greenhouses collections of BGs in Europe, and, yes, several plants came from private or commercial collections. In Nancy, many of our most interesting plants were gave by expert enthusiats.

 

To conclude Arne, I think that some botanist-gardeners  know well their plants and cultivate them appropriately ;)

 

All the best,

Aurélien

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Aurélien:

 

You rightly highlight the challenges that a number of public gardens face as they seek to increase the number of threatened and/or noteworthy plant species that they cultivate in the face of restrictive accession and exchange policies. Barring inflows from bona fide research expeditions that are permitted to export seed and/or live material by country of origin, there will be increasing risks that the diversity in these collections will decline, not increase, over coming years. While there are indeed some exceptionally talented horticulturists working in public gardens (I know several), I think few would argue that the greater resources and numerical superiority of private collectors makes it obvious that the "best-grown" examples of almost any species of plant will be in a private grower's hands. While this is particularly obvious in the case of very popular families/groups that are the object of massive global trade like orchids, cacti and other stem succulents, ornamental aquatics and palms, it is also true for a number of less popular/economically important plants such as carnivores and hydnophytines. There are a few exceptions to this rule, as is the case for cycads and the Montgomery Botanical Center in Miami, Florida and Nong Nooch Tropical BG in Thailand, but these are indeed "exceptions" and it is worth noting that they began their careers as private collections that were not originally open to the public.

 

Arne also makes an excellent point about how "specialty interests" within public collections often suffer when curators or horticultural botanists leave or die. This is applicable to zoos as well as botanical gardens and is even more evident in the case of private collectors if their collections are not destined for a planned distribution to other growers if they are incapacitated, economically incapable or unwilling to maintain their collections, or pass away.

 

I suppose the best case scenario is the path that many plantsman, both commercial and hobbyist, across the globe tend to follow; i.e. establish as many "interesting" plants in cultivation in as many qualified hands as possible and never stop this process.

 

I don't particularly care to get up on a soapbox to debate the merits and fallacies of ex-situ conservation, but at this stage of the game it seems quite obvious to me that - from a biodiversity conservation standpoint - a dollar spent in wildlands conservation and management is generally better spent than a dollar invested at a public garden, zoo or aquarium.

 

J

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