Muscari ... and some relatives 2009

[Jim McKenney]

By the way Jim are we allowed to ask what 'the last one' was?

Yes. 

[Tony Willis]

Alberto and Jim- I have to say I agree with both of you. I hadn't heard that Sternbergia candida had been collected to  extinction in the wild- and if this is true it is appalling, as it has undoubtably been collected by people local to its wild  range for sale,

This is actually not true and the plant still exists in quite large numbers but it was collected soon after its discovery in quantity and was on sale within a couple of years.

Also it was not collected by local people but by N. Europeans who ravaged the sites.

[Maggi Young]

Some number of years ago we bought a packet of  "yellow Sternbergia " bulbs from a  garden centre. When the sorry-looking dried bulbs eventually came to life and grew , it turned out they were Sternbergia candida!  So it seems that these lovely plants were being dug wild to be sold in bulk, and without even the cachet and concomitant high price their rarity could have commanded .... that added insult to their injury, did it not?

[Sinchets]

I hope it didn't sound like I was being some kind of racist by saying 'local people'. Anywhere in the world where there is something to sell there are always enterprising people willing to sell things- legally or otherwise. If it is locals or 'species' tourists collecting in bulk it is still morally and legally wrong, but if there is a market it will happen.
The question is: What do we as plant buyers do to stop it happening?

[Mark Griffiths]

Maggi I think that also was reported in an AGS journal.

I bought some dried tubers of C.hederifolium back in the early 80s, 2 were cilicium, 2 were mirabile.

[Maggi Young]

Yes, Mark, I believe that is was; we realised we were not the only ones to get these posh imposters.

Woolworths used to be an amazing source of wrongly named bulbs too... often varieties far rarer than they were meant to be.

[Gerry Webster]

I think it would be great if governments would set up programs to propagate native plants (either domestically or by outsourcing)  likely to be of interest to avid collectors.

I remember reading years ago that such schemes had been set up in Turkey. I don't know how successful they were or whether they still exist.

[Jim McKenney]

I hope it didn't sound like I was being some kind of racist by saying 'local people'. Anywhere in the world where there is something to sell there are always enterprising people willing to sell things- legally or otherwise. If it is locals or 'species' tourists collecting in bulk it is still morally and legally wrong, but if there is a market it will happen.
The question is: What do we as plant buyers do to stop it happening?

Simon, your question, which is certainly an important one, nevertheless reminds me of the issues which arise in the sale of pelts of protected cats: surely, some people must be thinking something on the order of "well, they're already dead, there's no harm now in putting them to good use". As the old saying goes, it's an ill wind which blows nobody good.

Most of us live in cultures which celebrate competition. We learn to distinguish ourselves from the crowd by the eclecticism we bring to much that we do. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who think that because they possess a rare plant (as in rare = better), that makes them a better person. If more of us were to address the obvious fallacy in that line of thinking, it might make a difference.

How do we respond to those who rightfully decry scorch earth collecting when, a few miles down the road the same species is being plowed for crops or buried under asphalt and housing or being ingested by the local goats? Human need will prioritize the response, and it's unlikely that the concerns of gardeners and the fate of plants will be at the top of the list.

I'm reminded of a story I read in a south Asian newspaper: it seems that in one of the zoos the crocodile was starving. It turned out that the keeper was selling the crocodile's fish ration to the starving local people. I'm sure if some local government were to pay a guard to watch over the oncocyclus iris fields all year, day and night, that guard's pay would be lower than what some collectors would be willing to bribe to gain access to the plants for a while. And no doubt when some deep pocketed developer wants to build on the oncocyclus iris fields, the head of the agency responsible for guarding them will accept a huge bribe, and then depart for some congenial country without an extradition treaty.  

And suppose some of those irises made it into the garden of an experienced local grower. Suppose that grower was able to keep the plants going long after their wild progenitors had been annihilated. That grower will grow old and die. There's a good chance that his heirs will regard his garden as so much clutter that detracts from the house's market value. In a weekend the bulldozers will come in and "clean it up".  

When I'm garden visiting and the owner is showing off the latest rarity scraped off some Chinese hillside, I'm not going to be impolite and castigate them for participating in the trade in collected plants. Who knows, they might be the one person who succeeds in establishing that species in cultivation. But in my mind, I see them feeding their pet thylacines and Carolina parakeets.

I found an old cookbook recently which included a recipe for prairie chicken. The recipe came from the daughter of a man who claimed to have killed thousands of them in his youth. The prairie chicken persists, but its eastern form, the heath hen, is gone forever. I wonder what recipe was used for heath hen?

I'm going on too much, but all of this reminds me of one more thing. Several years ago some friends and I were traveling on a road which took us over a low mountain (the only kind we have here) which was in a protected forest. As we surmounted the crest of the mountain, we were thrilled to see a ruffed grouse standing in the road in the lane beside us. As we passed, we got a very good look at it - the first time any of us had ever seen a live ruffed grouse. A moment later an approaching speeding car hit the grouse and obliterated it. A moment before it had been this magnificent creature; a moment later it was gone, replaced by a swirl of feathers. We just looked at one another: no one could think of anything to say.

To the extent that it has to be accomplished in the presence of human populations, the preservation of our natural heritage more and more seems to be a daunting challenge.  

We are the problem: there are many parallels between the illegal international trade in protected wildlife and plants and the illegal international trade in drugs. The trade exists because we want it and support it. Doesn't the market always win (he says as he listens to yet another radio account of AIG's excesses)?

[DaveM]

Simon

I don't know how widely the Pilous story was in the Turkish press, but there have certainly been some changes in the actions of the authorities since my previous visit in November 2007. Then we moved freely and without challenge wherever we went. If fact I'd never been stopped on any previous visit. However, during this last trip of two weeks in February and March we must have been stopped at least 6 times by the Jandarma. This was not routine by road blocks but spontaneous visits while we were botanising. They were always polite with hand shakes all round, but they were very interested in what we were doing. However, no searches of our vehicle or luggage were made, but I'm sure if we'd been digging plants we would have been in a very awkward situation. So, not a good idea to carry a trowell...... This was SW Turkey - no idea what it was like elsewhere. However, the level of authority interest came as a surprise even to our Turkish botanist guide. talking about this to a friend, I was told that even foreign botanical instututes are having problems getting live material out at present. Let's hope there are some more heavy fines dished out - quickest way to stop the rot.

[Sinchets]

Sounds like a vey positive step. Maybe the next step would be to grow the plants local to their areas of distribution, for sale to the 'western' markets - cutting out any middlemen.

[Gerry Webster]

It's difficult to know  whether Pilous is a one off but even if he is not it seems unlikely that commercial collecting today is on the scale that it was prior to the 1st World War - though I think Cyclamen were heavily collected in more recent times. Those interested might care to look at chap 5 of Growing Bulbs by Martyn Rix where he discusses nursery catalogues of the period. Although some bulbs were cultivated, many or most were wild collected in large numbers. The figures he quotes from a 1909 catalogue are dramatic: Chionodoxa lucilae - 7/6 to 14 shillings per 1000; Fritillaria whittallii - £2 per 1000; Galanthus elwesii - £45 per 100,000; Sternbergia clusiana - £2 per 1000. Rix comments that it is difficult to assess the effect on wild populations of collecting on this scale - "Snowdrops & Chionodoxa were probably seriously depleted in western Turkey, other genera less so".
If we make a rough conversion to the equivalent in today's money, these plants were incredibly cheap.

[gote]

I think it would be great if governments would set up programs to propagate native plants (either domestically or by outsourcing)  likely to be of interest to avid collectors.

I remember reading years ago that such schemes had been set up in Turkey. I don't know how successful they were or whether they still exist.

I think the start was sucessful and a very laudable initiative. RHS was behind it. If it is dead, it is probably because of the CITES restrictions on Galanthus which was the main crop.

There used to be a man in the Kibbuz of Tirat Zwi who was growing the local Oncos in fields. He did some hybridizing and also sold a lot of seed. I suggested that he contact one of the European societies (which will remain unnamed) He said that he had sold to them but they thought he was too expensive so they were not worth the effort.
Göte

[Sinchets]

Oh dear- if the EU can set limits on how much wheat should cost, maybe we should have CAP take a look at Oncos too!

[gote]

"GPS-data would really be even better."

Gote, GPS readings can be a bomb and must be very carefully handled.

Our love for plants is absorbing but we are perhaps the last generation capable of doing something positive to save species. In the future, species will just disappear flooded by the population explosion. Making public strategic locations could only speed the destruction of unique plants.

Alberto

I agree that exact location data of threatened plants should not be handed out freely but all plants are not threatened. Some plants that we grow with difficulty in our own climate are weeds in others. I may be too trusting but I tend to think that most people are both honest and able to understand which data should be censored. The fact that a GPS-receiver can get you to within a few meters does not mean that we need to publish the last digits. To know within a few miles where something grew is valuable information regarding climate, aspect and habitat.

These questions are not so simple as some people seem to believe (I do not mean you Alberto)  I am afraid that I repeat what has already been well said by Jim, Simon and others.

Any one, going on one of the plant expeditions arranged and/or supported by garden societies, can go back later and dig the plants in question. Are we to prohibit travelling?

If plants are to "disappear flooded by population" would it not be a good thing to save propagation material of them to our gardens? Is that not to "do something positive to save the species"?

Many people now claim that Mangroves in south east Asia are destroyed by shrimp farmers and that we should not eat the shrimps. Most of the forests that once covered Europe have been destroyed by potato and grain farmers. Should we stop eating bread and potatoes? Somehow it seems to me that we try to prevent people of other nations to do what our own ancestors did - are we taking on "The white mans burden" in disguise?

I can see nothing wrong if bulbs of Sternbergia candida are collected and sold IF IT IS DONE IN A SUSTAINABLE WAY. Just as my neighbours,  I collect Picea excelsa and Pinus silvestris on my own ground and sell them for profit. In my own interest I do it in a way that does not deplete the source but is sustainable. If a Greek farmer is able to harvest Sternbergias and sell he will both make sure no bulbs are stolen and that the population is not destroyed. If we refuse to buy the bulbs, we turn the farmers valuable crop into a weed that is spurned by his livestock and thus in his interest to eradicate. (I assume Sternbergias like other Amaryllidaceae are not eaten)

If a Turkish farmer were able to harvest and sell his surplus of bulbs he would make more money on that than he does on his goats today. He cannot do it because of the legal hassle so he lets his goats kill the bulbs. Thus the flora of his landscape partly looks like the flora of a golf green.

The thickest stand of Dactylorhiza I have ever seen was on a Catalan roadbank. These banks were managed in a way that made some of them into orchid habitats.

Some twenty years ago I managed to send seed of a Serapias to a Swedish specialist. He still grows the species after sucessful germination. I was also watching a population of a rare Ophrys but the day before I was to collect some seeds a sheperd had passed and there was not a single seed left. Had I dug a tuber and sent to Sweden, my friend would have now grown that too.   

What is happening is that authorities  and (sorry but I see it that way) societies try to apply measures suitable to animals also on plants where they become partly counterproductive.

Göte.

[Maggi Young]

I don't know how widely the Pilous story was in the Turkish press, but there have certainly been some changes in the actions of the authorities since my previous visit in November 2007. Then we moved freely and without challenge wherever we went. If fact I'd never been stopped on any previous visit. However, during this last trip of two weeks in February and March we must have been stopped at least 6 times by the Jandarma. This was not routine by road blocks but spontaneous visits while we were botanising. They were always polite with hand shakes all round, but they were very interested in what we were doing. However, no searches of our vehicle or luggage were made, but I'm sure if we'd been digging plants we would have been in a very awkward situation. So, not a good idea to carry a trowell...... This was SW Turkey - no idea what it was like elsewhere. However, the level of authority interest came as a surprise even to our Turkish botanist guide. talking about this to a friend, I was told that even foreign botanical instututes are having problems getting live material out at present. Let's hope there are some more heavy fines dished out - quickest way to stop the rot.

 Reported quite widely in Turkish Press, David, see references to this is the Iris pages.


N.B.
As has been stated before, the SRGC maintains that any collecting must be done responsibly and in a sustainable manner to conform with any local and international rules and regulations.