I could not find any of my 2001 AQ. Thank you.

This statement from the AQ,:
"plants that do not conform to known parameters for legal
acquisition will not be judged or considered for any AOS award"

makes me consider how important it is to my customers that I mark each of my
sales receipts for Paph vietnamensis or Ho Chi Minh with a signed statement
attesting to the fact that the plants named on it came from Antec . I think
that the AOS should consider such a assertion as "proof" the plants do meet
this criteria. I feel that to decline to judge them on the basis that a
plant did "not conform to known parameters for legal acquisition" would be
tantamount to an accusation by the AOS that at the very least fraud is
involved...so what ever they accept as proof should be applied to all
exhibitors of listed plants and with care.

I feel a receipt lacking that written assertion is also good enough for the
above to plants but I am finally getting tired of typing and don't feel like
trying to explain why.... It has something to do with the fact that nobody
officially tracks the transfer of ownership and reproduction of plant
material except maybe at border crossings. If the AOS is going to ask for
proofs, I think that some plants (Paph vietnamensis or Ho Chi Minhs) should
only require the exhibitor to state on the exhibit form where they got it,
so that it gets into the data record.

It is interesting to note that AOS judges can not judge Phrag kovachii in
this country yet, but they can travel to Peru and judge them at AOS
sponsored events there.

"K Barrett" wrote in message
. ..
Found it.

AQ vol 32, no 4, pg 289. Dec 2001.

At that point in time the new edition of the handbook was being written
and (according to this article) in the forward of the new edition there
was to be written wordage about the concern the AOS has for CITES.

" The last several years have seen growing concern with the situation
regarding orchids acquired in contravention of existing international
agreements. The American Orchid Society makes plain its intent to respect
and abide by these agreements and will not knowingly violate them.
Consequently, plants that do not conform to known parameters for legal
acquisition will not be judged or considered for any AOS award."

The Article goes on to list plants, and says the list will change from
time to time as plants are added and removed from teh list. But at the
time the list was mostly the Vietnamese paphs:

caobangense
coccineum
helenae
herrmannii
hiepii
hilmarii
mirabilie
tranlienianum
vietnamense

The article goes on to say "In order to fully conform to CITES
regulations, the prohibition extends to plants of these species raised
from seed and to any of their hybrids. This constitutes teh Society's
understanding of the legal requirements and prohibitions at this time.
Additional information will be published in teh Awards Quarterly as it
becmes available. Any questions should be referred to the Judging
Committee." This was written by James Rassman.

Again, this was written in December of 2001, and since then Antec has
legal Paph vietnamense and legal Ho Chi Minhs for sale. I suppose since
the update of Antecs Paphs weren't written up in teh AQ they can't be
judged either... JUST KIDDING!

I have to go back to work, now, but I'll look up the forward of teh
Handbook 11th ed to see what they actually wrote. One could always ask
if the forward to a document is actually legislatable... but I'll leave it
for now.

K Barrett
"K Barrett" wrote in message
. ..
I think that may have been in 'Orchids' I *think* Roddy Gable wrote a
list of illegal paphs. I went back through my AQs, but only 3-4 years and
couldn't find the list or policy, but know they published a list of
illegals.

K Barrett

"Al" wrote in message
...
Somebody just wrote to me to say that there is a discussion of policy or
guidelines in an old AQ someplace regarding this issue; something that
might be summarized thusly: the policy is that species described since
the 1990 ban on the importation of Paphiopedilum species cannot be
judged unless the exhibitor can provide evidence regarding the legality
of the plant in question. (you mean they have something besides
pictures in them?) I will start searching my old AQs shortly but they
only go back to about the year 2000 and they are spread all over the
creation... If anybody can find it and point me at it, I will stop
banging my head on walls at least for a little while.

There are actually quite a few knowledgeable people who either read this
newsgroup or have contact by email with people who do. There's a lot of
connection below the public chatter and I am getting quite a few
interesting emails on this topic.

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
...
And mo
Does anybody really read any of this crap? :-)

Um, yeah! No more head banging, Al, or we'll have to send someone in
with a wench.

Diana