Mr Wellenstein,
Thanks for the clarifications. I hope that I had made it clear that my information regarding your
vietnamense was only rumor, which obviously turned out to be mistaken, as is so often the case with rumors.
As long as I'm here, let me address a couple of the points you raised.
Quote:
Anyway, there have been blooming size vietnamense in the US for long enough that there should be several hybrids legally available
This is not true, there has been barely sufficient time for the fastest growers of our releases to reach flowering size, much less to have produced offspring.
My reasoning progressed as follows: You have made a legal vietnamense hybrid (in the USA), as a consequence of your access to legal vietnamense parent plants. Others also have had access to these plants (namely, Glen Decker, or so he told me). If you've had time to make a hybrid, so has anyone else with access. So, there has been sufficient time for others to make hybrids, though it seems apparent that nobody else has actually done so. Perhaps it is simply an issue of access, not time.
And, as you said later in your post,
We produced many more hybrids, but have only sold a few flasks of one or two of these crosses early on. The rest are here growing,
So, indeed, several hybrids have been made. I only said that they SHOULD be available... hint hint
Anyway, to move on to the next point....
Quote:
So, MOST hybrids are legal
No, the only hybrid that we released were Ho Chi Minhs.
Here, I wasn't speaking of most vietnamense hybrids, simply of Paph hybrids generally, in response to kentuckiense's comment regarding the legal status of hybrids on the whole. Looking back at my post, I see that it was ambiguous on that point. Sorry, my fault
Quote:
Practically speaking, though, nobody will probably care about vietnamense parentage in a hybrid anymore, since they are so common in the US.
Doesn't seem to be the case based on the emails and phone calls we are receiving, as stated above.
I'm glad to hear that! I've seen so many vietnamense for sale that I was assuming that they just weren't being looked after anymore. In fact, there have been several species on Ebay (hangianum comes to mind) that have been offered for months at a time with no action being taken, which I have found surprising. I was starting to get the impression that our USWF just didn't care about us anymore
Whether or not people can get away with buying or selling illegal plants (practically speaking), I certainly wouldn't suggest that people do it! If anyone took my comment that way, then I'm very sorry indeed.
Anyway, thanks again for clearing this up.
- Matthew Gore
