Ethics of poached plants

[BarryRice]

Hey Folks,

I write a blog for The Nature Conservancy. Today I snuck in a posting about carnivorous plants and poaching. This is an ethical question I have pondered for years....

blog.nature.org

Cheers

Barry

[Aidan]

...and here's mine. I can say nothing of its origins beyond the grower whom I obtained it from some years ago.



What am I supposed to do with it? Compost it? If we all do that, the plant is extinct... though my hands would be ethically clean.

The sad fact is that many of the plants that we all grow certainly derive from poached plants or seed. It would not surprise me to learn that the majority of plants enter cultivation by ethically dubious means.

As an aside, though some "Horticulturists wet themselves at the sight", I find that there is little interest in the anthocyanin-free forms. Why? Lack of colour...

[meadowview]

Hi Barry:

I can resolve your ethical dilemma regarding green Sarracenia jonesii in particular and endangered Sarracenia in general.

The green S. jonesii that we sell was not poached from the wild but was legitimately obtained from two sources. The first source was Don Schnell who gave us plants years ago. Presumably Don had permission from the landowner to obtain plants or seeds. The second source was where we collected seed from the natural site with the landowners permission. This site is the same as where Don Schnell got his plants and is the only known site for green anthocyanin-free S. jonesii plants. So.. you can get endangered Sarracenia plants that were legitimately obtained from the wild (the same scenario applies to our other endangered Sarracenia as well).

Also, we predicted in our HortScience paper, Genetics of Anthocyanin Deficiency in Sarracenia L. 1998. HortScience 33(6): 1042 - 1045, that green S. jonesii will reappear at the original site. The reason is we know there are heterozygotes at that site (in fact our green plants were obtained from wild pollination of a mother RED plant at that site). In short, the allele is present in this population in heterozygous plants and if you can get enough regeneration you should see the green seedlings appear.

Sincerely,

Phil Sheridan

Director
Meadowview Biological
Research Station