kentuckiense
Debaser
From Mr. Birk's first response:
From Mr. Birk's latest response:
Ok, so which one is it?
Lance Birk said:
From Mr. Birk's latest response:
Lance Birk said:
Ok, so which one is it?
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kentuckiense said:
I like to think it was the latter. I thought that was a fine attempt at making amends, and trying to be part of an educational discussion.
(So shut it, Z, or we might have to ban you for real.) :evil:
P
PHRAG
Guest
I agree with Heather. I may disagree with Mr. Birk's personality, and most of the things he says, but his last post was an attempt at least at trying to square things with Stephen. Whether he was successful or whether what he said is true, is not for me to say.
We don't all have to get along to reside in the same space, but when you all try to seperate us for the sake of "peace and love" and "pretty flowers", you don't allow people to learn anything. Try to remember that next time we have some spirited debate around here.
Can you imagine if someone had interupted Lincoln and Douglas to tell them they should just go smell the roses? Lincoln would have laid the smackdown, I'm sure. : )
We don't all have to get along to reside in the same space, but when you all try to seperate us for the sake of "peace and love" and "pretty flowers", you don't allow people to learn anything. Try to remember that next time we have some spirited debate around here.
Can you imagine if someone had interupted Lincoln and Douglas to tell them they should just go smell the roses? Lincoln would have laid the smackdown, I'm sure. : )
TADD
Rootless Wonder
Lance Birk said:
Wait wait who is Lincoln Douglas??????
oke:
P
PHRAG
Guest
TADD said:Wait wait who is Lincoln Douglas??????
Bass player for Slipknot. Do try to keep up.
kentuckiense
Debaser
Heather said:
I'll just start SlipperChat.com!
P
PHRAG
Guest
kentuckiense said:I'll just start SlipperChat.com!
I would so join that.
LB, I do appreciate the kind words regarding my site. Orchids is the one thing I have actually become interested in that I have really stuck with for a long time. I don't see any end in sight.
My wish about your book is that I could tell which habitat data was being provided from your having seen the habitats and which came from a different source. I am trying to limit the data I use to original material (with the exceptions of Cribb 1998 and Braem & Chiron 2003, which I hope to eventually phase out as I get more material). By using only material from people who have seen the plants in situ, I can ensure that I'm not reading an interpretation. If I knew which habitats you describe based on your observations from the field, I could really add to the info I provide. Will your new book be listing which species you saw when and where?
The citations I was talking about all would've been in the species section. I figured practically all the non-common-knowledge cultural stuff was original. The questions of what ranks to place various taxa at will probably never be generally agreed upon (and one could argue that it's good that there is no resolution since continued debate means more exploration of the species).
I love the photos and illustrations in Cribb's book and most of his discussions. I do wish he'd provided a bit more detail on the history of the taxa and his reasoning for some of the taxonomic choices he makes.
Range data has presented an especially difficult problem in making the site. I have found that Cribb's maps tend to shade in an area a bit larger than the documented distribution of the species. He may be purposely trying not to provide specific data for the ranges so that his book doesn't become a guidepost for collectors. I think the best way to nail down ranges, at least for the older species, is to make a systematic analysis of herbarium collections for paphs (the way Lucille McCook did in her doctoral thesis on Phrags). I'm not sure ranges for some of the widespread species (e.g. lowii, philippinense, appletonianum/bullenianum. etc>) will ever be certain, especially with the accellerating habitat destruction that is occuring.
I believe situations with conflicting data are the ones where a bibliography is crucial. That data has to be interpreted and the reader may want to analyze the original data to understand why the author has reached his/her conclusion.
--Stephen
My wish about your book is that I could tell which habitat data was being provided from your having seen the habitats and which came from a different source. I am trying to limit the data I use to original material (with the exceptions of Cribb 1998 and Braem & Chiron 2003, which I hope to eventually phase out as I get more material). By using only material from people who have seen the plants in situ, I can ensure that I'm not reading an interpretation. If I knew which habitats you describe based on your observations from the field, I could really add to the info I provide. Will your new book be listing which species you saw when and where?
The citations I was talking about all would've been in the species section. I figured practically all the non-common-knowledge cultural stuff was original. The questions of what ranks to place various taxa at will probably never be generally agreed upon (and one could argue that it's good that there is no resolution since continued debate means more exploration of the species).
I love the photos and illustrations in Cribb's book and most of his discussions. I do wish he'd provided a bit more detail on the history of the taxa and his reasoning for some of the taxonomic choices he makes.
Range data has presented an especially difficult problem in making the site. I have found that Cribb's maps tend to shade in an area a bit larger than the documented distribution of the species. He may be purposely trying not to provide specific data for the ranges so that his book doesn't become a guidepost for collectors. I think the best way to nail down ranges, at least for the older species, is to make a systematic analysis of herbarium collections for paphs (the way Lucille McCook did in her doctoral thesis on Phrags). I'm not sure ranges for some of the widespread species (e.g. lowii, philippinense, appletonianum/bullenianum. etc>) will ever be certain, especially with the accellerating habitat destruction that is occuring.
I believe situations with conflicting data are the ones where a bibliography is crucial. That data has to be interpreted and the reader may want to analyze the original data to understand why the author has reached his/her conclusion.
--Stephen
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kentuckiense said:I'll just start SlipperChat.com!
John, Don't we already own that domain?
oke:Lance Birk
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Silence,
Here are the problems with trying to determine the range of any orchid species. Few, if any of the old collection data has correct locations cited. This is because collectors fiercely protect their collection sites, to guard against another collector finding and taking ‘their’ sources of livelihood. Some are close (but HOW close, who knows?); some are listed as coming from a completely different country. I, myself, listed P. celebesense as coming from a place a long way away from where I found it. This was an attempt to divert further collection, yet still give a general area description.
When I was in Bogor, in 1978, I photographed every Paphiopedilum herbarium sheet, and found very conflicting data on a great many of them. Many of those sheets were wrongly identified, had only a few words to explain a few basic requirements, and because of the location in Java, who knows how much useable data remains of that material. The director told me that the Japanese destroyed the entire contents of the herbarium during WWII, so we are left with a lot of missing data.
A person could spend a lifetime trying to locate every habitat of a single species, and then I am certain, he would miss a large number of them. Also, all this hype about species being wiped out, like those from Vietnam for example, is pure BS. I can assure you, that I could go there right now and find truckloads of any species given that pronouncement. Even Cribb has now said, “So far orchid species do not seem to have been exterminated in the quantities predicted some years ago”(P.Cribb,
www.kew.org/herbarium/orchid/ORN35/intro.htm). I have seen places, in Hong Kong and in Borneo, where local species have returned a year or so after being “wiped out” in particular locations. This is not to say that forest habitats are not being destroyed, and eventually many of them will be, but the reality of life is, it is next to impossible to actually destroy a single species of anything. Don’t forget just how small those orchid seeds are.
Your quote:
“I believe situations with conflicting data are the ones where a bibliography is crucial. That data has to be interpreted and the reader may want to analyze the original data to understand why the author has reached his/her conclusion.”
Unless you personally see every herb sheet yourself, in every herbarium, this will never happen. Also, the only information you will ever get from Kew is their own ‘interpretation’ of data from their vast collections of herb sheets…and you will never see those sheets.
There are some things we will never know, unfortunately, and it is frustrating to accept this realization.
As far as information I put in my new book, most of it gives habitat description in a way that does not pinpoint exact locations. Even still, I know collectors in SE Asia who continue to send their collectors into a particular area, searching for particular orchid species, and they will just keep searching until they find it. But this is really a good thing, actually, (one recently re-discovered the long-lost habitat of P. lawrenceanum). I have a whole lot more faith in the ability of commercial orchid collectors to propagate, and to vastly increase their numbers, and to ‘save’ any orchid species from the possibility of becoming ‘wiped out,’ than I do in the CITES dictate that prevents us from going into the jungle and salvaging those habitats under pressure. But my book is about all the ‘stuff’ that happens when you go out into the jungle and may not be exactly what you might have in mind about descriptive orchid habitats.
Lance
Here are the problems with trying to determine the range of any orchid species. Few, if any of the old collection data has correct locations cited. This is because collectors fiercely protect their collection sites, to guard against another collector finding and taking ‘their’ sources of livelihood. Some are close (but HOW close, who knows?); some are listed as coming from a completely different country. I, myself, listed P. celebesense as coming from a place a long way away from where I found it. This was an attempt to divert further collection, yet still give a general area description.
When I was in Bogor, in 1978, I photographed every Paphiopedilum herbarium sheet, and found very conflicting data on a great many of them. Many of those sheets were wrongly identified, had only a few words to explain a few basic requirements, and because of the location in Java, who knows how much useable data remains of that material. The director told me that the Japanese destroyed the entire contents of the herbarium during WWII, so we are left with a lot of missing data.
A person could spend a lifetime trying to locate every habitat of a single species, and then I am certain, he would miss a large number of them. Also, all this hype about species being wiped out, like those from Vietnam for example, is pure BS. I can assure you, that I could go there right now and find truckloads of any species given that pronouncement. Even Cribb has now said, “So far orchid species do not seem to have been exterminated in the quantities predicted some years ago”(P.Cribb,
www.kew.org/herbarium/orchid/ORN35/intro.htm). I have seen places, in Hong Kong and in Borneo, where local species have returned a year or so after being “wiped out” in particular locations. This is not to say that forest habitats are not being destroyed, and eventually many of them will be, but the reality of life is, it is next to impossible to actually destroy a single species of anything. Don’t forget just how small those orchid seeds are.
Your quote:
“I believe situations with conflicting data are the ones where a bibliography is crucial. That data has to be interpreted and the reader may want to analyze the original data to understand why the author has reached his/her conclusion.”
Unless you personally see every herb sheet yourself, in every herbarium, this will never happen. Also, the only information you will ever get from Kew is their own ‘interpretation’ of data from their vast collections of herb sheets…and you will never see those sheets.
There are some things we will never know, unfortunately, and it is frustrating to accept this realization.
As far as information I put in my new book, most of it gives habitat description in a way that does not pinpoint exact locations. Even still, I know collectors in SE Asia who continue to send their collectors into a particular area, searching for particular orchid species, and they will just keep searching until they find it. But this is really a good thing, actually, (one recently re-discovered the long-lost habitat of P. lawrenceanum). I have a whole lot more faith in the ability of commercial orchid collectors to propagate, and to vastly increase their numbers, and to ‘save’ any orchid species from the possibility of becoming ‘wiped out,’ than I do in the CITES dictate that prevents us from going into the jungle and salvaging those habitats under pressure. But my book is about all the ‘stuff’ that happens when you go out into the jungle and may not be exactly what you might have in mind about descriptive orchid habitats.
Lance
