tennis wrote:

I don't begrudge you your plants, and yes, I am jealous.

Hee! And it was only $15, in bud ;-.

But I have no
doubts they'd sell illegal plants over their sites if there's no
enforcement. It is widely known that illegal plants are all over Europe
and Japan. No one in authority seems to care.

I've heard *very* differently. People have had their private greenhouses
raided and plants confiscated (I seem to recall that someone even had a
Paph Pinocchio confiscated, yep, they know what they're doing).
Unfortunately, the exact account of the incident has disappeared from
the archives of the German forum I frequent, and the residents there are
not too keen on drawing attention to themselves in this matter now ,
but there was a huge discussion quite a while back. When you import
plants here, it apparently even depends on the airport how much trouble
they give you. In some places, they require CITES docs for flasks (see
above with the Pinocchio) and will confiscate. So I'm quite certain that
illegal plants are not sold openly (I just saw that www.m-m-orchid.com,
www.botorch.nl and www.klinge.nl also have jackii and/or its hybrids in
their lists).
This is the country where pedestrians stop at red traffic lights even
when there is no car to be seen anywhere, remember?

Now, the breeder of my plant states on their website that all the plants
they sell are from artificial propagation. I've also contacted them
about it, let's see what they say. According to the slipperorchid.com
website, the problem in the planned jackii import lies with the USDA,
that they require additional paperwork, to me this implies that there
are legal plants available.

Just wish the same
attitude prevailed here! All CITES really seems to do in reality is
raise the prices of collected plants and fail to permit the benefits and
lessening of collecting pressure from cultured plants, seed grown
species and hybrids.

Yes, certainly, and I also think it's a disgrace that you can't salvage
orchids from cut-down trees and take them somewhere else, and also, what
help are controls in the destination countries when they don't work in
the countries of origin- they just collect the plants and let them die,
if the plant is lucky, it goes to a botanical garden.

Nina
--
C'est les microbes qui auront le dernier mot.
Louis Pasteur
http://www.chaotropic.net