Sanderianum- what do you mean by "precultivated"? Do you mean a wild collected plant that has grown and been divided? Technically, those would be OK by CITES (assuming that the parent was collected and originally propagated in its country of origin...theoretically, that is..not like its likely to be provable). Also, having grown on would allow the plant to adapt to cultivation. To most of us, wild collected means dug up, shipped out, potted up. To me, a plant that has been grown long enough to divide is a propagated plant..I would consider it "wild", or "natural", but its still propagated. Take care, Eric
Yes, precultivated means ,as an example for the sugiyamanum, they have been collected from the wild, put in a pot for some weeks or 2-4 months, they made 1 leaf and they are sold. Of course it is not OK by the CITES at all, because each plant is a plant from the jungle, there is no division or real propagation.
The volonteanum as an example have been collected straight out of the jungle, the ciliolare have been collected, they made 2 leaves, and they were sold.
NYEric, yes it means every single of those plants is coming from the wild by itself, not divided or otherwise. The wholesaler is located in Johore, but the exporter is much further north. The stonei are very typical of fresh jungle plants as well. Many people think of jungle collected plants as a big mess with all broken roots and leaves, but in fact, the exporters browse through the fresh batches, and choose plants that look not too damaged, such as the stonei or the volonteanum. The really damaged plants end up in the garbage, for three reasons. First one, a damaged one will take years to restart and look nice again, second, most of the exporters do not know how to grow them, third, the fresh plants are so cheap that it is not even interesting to buy a pot to pot them.
The other problem being that those plants are not 'adapted to cultivation' at all. The real diseases and hard time for a wild collected paph is around 6 months to a year. That's why they sell them as fresh from the jungle, or precultivated 2-4 months. Keeping them 1 year without very careful, proper care, would mean losses up to 90%.
As for the stonei, they are usually collected in big clumps, and divided/cut to fit the orders. The exporters have a standard size, like 2 growths plants, so they cut accordingly the fresh plants. If you are lucky and they are extrafresh, they can restart without too much trouble. If they have been stored improperly for a couple weeks, they will be gone within a year or two maximum.
The point is not to criticize that plants are still wild collected - in fact some species are so common in the wild, like sanderianum, that it's nearly unbelievable. They are there by the dozen of thousands, collected by the thousands, but still many colonies... The point is to inform clearly, and show how thew things are really doing. Sugiyamanum is far more rare than sanderianum or rothschildianum in the wild. Furthermore a jungle plant has to be grown in a different way from a seedgrown plant for some years, that's why the buyer must know the origin of the plants he buys...
The last point is that the plants are selected to be crappy. As for ciliolare, there is a quite common strain called ciliolare gigantea. The plants are 40-50 leafspan, blooms in the 12-15 cm. Really gorgeous. In fact they are so big that Golamco when he described paph xMindanaense though they were superbiens.
Randsii exists as randsii gigantea, 2m leafspan plants, 10-18 flowers on a stem. Some sanderianun are over 1.2m leafspan. There are jungle rothschildianum that have 6-7 40 cm flowers and are bigger than an average kolopakingii.... Think of using one of those plants to replace Rex in the world famous Rex x Mt Millais cross, and clearly RxMM would become just as average as Charles E x Borneo is right now...
But those plants will never be exported from Malaysia, Philippines... They take medium to small sized plants, because there are less leaf markings than the big ones, they dehydrate within some months, where a very large randsii would dry up in a couple of weeks, so they can be stored awaiting the customer... The collectors always charge by bag, and one bag would have around 400-600 ciliolare medium size, but only 100-200 ciliolare giant strain. For roth, a bag would be 120 plants of the medium size, but only 10-15 of the giant strain.
If there were real growers of paphs in Malaysia and Philippines - with 1-2 notable exceptions in Malaysia, one exports, the other one not... - they would force the collector to take some of those amazing plants, and propagate specimens that would be completely mind-blowing.
By the way, watch those ciliolare for brevipalpus mites. The asian grower of those ciliolare has a lot of spidermites in his place, and that's a imidacloprid-boosted strain of brevipalpus, nasty to kill...