If only it was this simple. It is not. Aaron explained the "fruit of the
poison tree" and I think this is the area that most people get in trouble
most often. It is a mess and reading CITES will not clear it up. At this
point I do not think there is any one out there that can tell you which
plants are legal in the US--you need to know about the plant's parents and
that information need not be on the label. What is legal in one country is
often illegal US (Aaron explained this as well). The import process do not
stop the flow. If the plant is legal in Taiwan, the exporter is able to get
a valid CITES export permit.

As K Barrett stated, AOS will not judge illegal plants and this is going to
be a mess as well. Take the Paph Joyce Hasegawa I saw last week. The
judges must decide if the plant is mislabeled, if they decide yes it is
easy. But if they decide the label is correct, the next question is if the
plant has been made with one of the newly collected delenatiis (darker and
better) or if it was made with a legal delenatii. Good luck.

Does any one know the answers to these?

When AOS judges in foreign countries are only plants legal in the US
considered?

Why are paphs such as hangianum still illegal? Has Vietnam refused to grant
export permits?

Are both China and Taiwan members of CITES?

Will newly found species legally make it out of China?

Pat





oups.com...
Sterile seed and tissue cultures are exempt. But you have to be skilled
to grow those into orchids. From
http://www.cites.org/eng/app/appendices.shtml :
"For all of the following Appendix-I species, seedling or tissue
cultures obtained in vitro, in solid or liquid media, transported in
sterile containers are not subject to the provisions of the Convention"

Appendix I are the rare ones--even those threatened with extinction.
Follow the link for a list of names. All phrag and phaphs are listed as
Appendix I.

Most people seem to run into trouble with plants of flowering size that
are or appear wild-collected. Also, many people don't read CITES and
don't know that many types of Orchids cannot be shipped internationally
at all.

At this point, the easiest orchids to ship internationally are hybrids
of the genera Cymbidium, Dendrobium, Phalaenopsis and Vanda. They've
become so common (i.e. grown in large numbers commercially) that these
can now be shipped without much hassle. In fact they are exempt from
CITES if the shipment meets specific requirements. (See footnote 8 on
the above page--very informative!)

-Munir