I've also read opinions on the OGD that if a species does not have a proper
latin binomial, it is not eligible for CITES export papers. This person then
went on to say every orchid discovered after some year in the 80s or 90s and
imported into the USA for description is technically fruit of the poison
tree and illegal.

As you can imagine, that means all newly described species must be described
from within the borders of the country they are discovered in before they
can be exported to the rest of the world.

This mess has also caused some large botanical institutions in the USA to
completely stop all plant research outside of the USA. They saw what
happened to Selby and are afraid it could happen to them.

Well, Friday has come and gone - I hope you were able to write an
interesting paper!

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org

"K Barrett" wrote in message
. ..
OK as to Kovach and the phrag. As far as I know he didn't have any
paperwork at all. No import/export forms filled out correctly or
incorrectly, nothing, nada, zilch, zippo. As far as I know he was on
vacation, saw this plant in a roadside cart, grabbed it quick! and ran for
home.

Personally I think he was just so excited he just kept his mouth shut
about his discovery and got it home as fast as possible, gave it to Selby
for ID, said "name it for me" and split for home to dump is bags and get
cleaned up. Never thinking about CITES, only thinking he had something no
one had ever seen before! How exciting!

Then like you say the doodoo hit the fan and the rest is history.

I'm betting you are right about Peru waking up after the fact and getting
ticked off about the plant escaping their country. If that hadn't happened
I'll bet everyone concerned never would have had to explain a thing.

Now, what you say about buying a plant labelled one way and having it
actually be something entirely other happens quite alot. Why isn't *that*
high crimes and misdemeanors? Just because its not a phrag?

K

Al wrote:
I understood that. I was not confused. I still have always wondered how
Kovach went wrong. Was he intentionally smuggling or was he in a gray
area where procedures were unclear. An unidentified new Phrag species.
What did he declare it was on his permits that allowed it to pass all the
way to Shelby and published as newly discovered before the doo-doo hits
the big blowing air machine? I am certain he knew he had a new species.
I don't know how the permits work on this level. Why didn't he present
his new find to Peruvian botanists? I always figured he took it to
Shelby because Shelby was the botany department he knew of that could do
the work.

Your example is one way plants are smuggled, for sure. No names are
needed. I sometimes buy recently imported plants from American companies
all the time and get unbloomed orchids that bloom out to be other than
what they were sold to me as. I have something that came in labeled as
Asctm curvifolium and blooms out to be the weirdest little thing. In two
flowering now I have been unable to identify it. I don't have a good
picture of it yet. The flowers are pin-head sized brown and yellow. It
is clearly an orchid of some kind, and probably not new to science, just
new to me. I have received some rather rare Phal minus this way too. I
bought Phal gibbosa from a man who thought he was selling me Phal gibbosa
and when it bloomed and I asked him what it was, he wanted it back. No,
I think I'll keep for all those times I bought something rare (not
necessarily from this man) and got Phal equestris instead.


"K Barrett" wrote in message
. ..

I knew I'd confuse the issue by mentioning kovachii or any names at all.
I'm sorry I ever answered the original question. My answer was in regard
to HOW orchids could be smuggled using a CODE. Not about kovachii or
anything/anyone else. Substitute X and Y for plant names if you prefer.

K

Al wrote:

With kovachii, I am still a bit confused as to the order it all
happened. I don't think he was intentionally smuggling in the manner
your hypothetical example suggests it is done.

I have always assumed he had the correct specialized permits to
import/export already classified Phrags and that he broke the law kind
of by accident because it was an undescribed piece of plant material and
shouldn't have left Peru, no matter what kind of permit he had. I have
always kind of believed that the issue started when Peru discovered one
of their native plants had made it into the US to be described by a US
authority and that until then, nobody realized the treaty had this kind
of gray area in it that would allow undescribed material to be exported
so easily. It has always seemed to me that he was in a kind of gray
area and not at all doing what you describe below as smuggling. But my
assumptions are probably too simplified.

He and Selby broke the law, (as decided by the outcome of the court
case) but what should they have done differently? What would have been
the correct course of action for an American plant collector in Peru to
take after discovering a new species of Phrag? What should Selby have
done when this unimaginably serendipitous piece of plant material
dropped in their lap?

K Barrett" wrote in message
news:uvadnWF0AbVZXefenZ2dnUVZ_sWdnZ2d@comcast. com...


jamiemtl wrote:


ok - so im now fascinated with Silva's and Norris' case. Apparently
they would get fake permits for legal orchids, then ship illegal ones
with these legit permits? It said on the US department of
agriculture's
website that they even devised a code to determine what these orchids
were? Does anyone have any further information?


That's why I said this could become a life's work. Its a great story.

To answer your question about how this is done.

If you were to go to any orchid show you'd see orchids for sale, and
mostly they are out of bloom. Yous see just a mass of green plant
stuffs.

One out of bloom orchid plant - for the most part - looks like any
other orchid plant of the same variety. The way we tell them apart is
by the tag the vendor puts on the plant. For ease in labelling,
vendors will label their plants by number and have a master list as to
what all the numbers mean. Then when they get to where ever they are
going they'll put a better tag on the plant. So you'll see plants
tagged '1167 Soph cernua' and some just '1167' and you as teh purchaser
have to know/ask what '1167' is. Pretty much this is standard
operating procedure, but to a customs agent or a reporter looking for a
story it could look like a "code".

Nevertheless, the key to the crime is that one orchid looks pretty much
like another of the same variety when its out of bloom.

So, your cohort (in the country of origin) writes up a bunch of
paperwork saying you two are importing an easy to get plant like
Phragmipedium schlimii (an example only). He gets CITES & USFWS
(endangered species) permits to import Phrag schlimii. The paperwork
says item #123 is Phrag schlimii. But really item #123 is rare, sexy
Phrag kovachii (an example only), a plant people would kill for. The
customs agents look over his shipment, sees that a bunch of Phrags are
coming in, but they really have no idea WHAT they are because one out
of bloom phrag looks pretty much like another. You pick up the plants
at the customs house. Your cohort has emailed you the real list,
stating #123 is kovachii. Bada bing! You're in the money. You
contact your friends who you know will want the plants no matter what
the cost, and you laugh all the way to the bank. Unless you are George
Norris, who - according the the feds - never deleted his email or
cleaned his hard drive and they found the trail. Then you wind up in
prison. Note: George wasn't busted for Phrag. kovachii, Selby Gardens
and Michael Kovach were, I just used those species as an example.

I could go on, but its your homework, LOL!!

If you can figure out the OGD's search feature you should be able to
find Norris's own post about how the feds treated him when they served
their search warrant. I thought it was chilling.

You may also be able to find an account of how Eurpoean vendors filled
the back of a pick up truck with illegally collected Phrag kovachiis to
sell in Europe. I guess their customs agents are even worse than ours
at plant identification _ I'm kidding the story is more convoluted than
that, but there's only so much I can write at one time.

K Barrett