The problem in the first place is:
1 - the plants were discovered in Thailand in between a bunch of P. canhii from Laos. How they got to Thailand in the first place is a grey zone.
2 -, they also seem to grow around the North Western border of Vietnam.
3 - Some plants were shipped to Germany for identification and description of this species.
I know and saw that in Vietnam,masses of all kinds of orchids are harvested from the wild, still at this moment. When I was there,they were sold all around ont he sidewalk, sold in bundles by the poor people. If you don't believe me, do a YouTube search, even there Vietnamese are proud to offer bundles of orchid species,no one seem to mind this. Do stripping nature from all types of orchids.
Do I like it? NO!, Can I do something about it? No! These people do this to get a bit of money for food but don't understand the consequences for nature. After all,you still can see that nature is still recovering from what of the Americans did there,many years ago.
Smart Thai venders, buy up some of this vast amount of collected plants and ship them out, sometimes they just drive over the borders. Vietnam and Laos are not that fussed,specially when it comes to border control. As long as you got some money in your pocket, border control is OK with it in many places. I don't respect this, but it is what it is. Everywhere in the world, people use back-doors to get what they want. Now if someone, wherever, takes the time to pollinate, germinate and grow a species on, rare or not,and exports these with the right permits, that I can respect.
How the original plants arrived in Germany, also is in the grey area but this species is pollinated and grown on there too, making these plants legal in Europe.
It's odd that such a rampant comes from the US and specially to my post! Not seen on other posts on this forum.
The US is known all over to have the most illegal (exotic) animals and plants (orchids) in the world. Look at P. kovachii!
Maybe it's time to stop posting on this forum and even leave it.
It certainly not pleasant to be accused of illegality when it's not.
No more for me or I might be shot eventually!
It was you who used harsh and in my eyes inappropriate words in the P. kovachi thread.These people should be shot or imprisoned immediately.............
Now when it comes to your Paph rungsuriyanum your words are much milder and you try to find reasons and apologies why this is how it is. Of couse it's a tragedy when orchids have been plundered from the wild.....no matter in which country all around the world. You already described the reasons why it is this way, so I don't need to repeat it.
In the end there beat two hearts in my chest. One which says, without a permit collected plants in the wild stay illegal even if the were smuggled over a border, propagated legally in another country and the offsprings were shipped with CITES papers to Europe. The other heart says, it's good to save such endangered plants from extinction in the wild.....sometimes with unconventional methods.
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