Munir,
As a general rule of thumb,
1. Buy from reputable growers within your country of origin.
2. Use nursery grown stock when making crosses or selfings.
3. Don't send plants out of the country of origin.
4. When buying at orchid fairs from foreign sources, be sure you are not
buying plants that are on the endangered list.
5. And, I don't think that even sterile, in-vitro containers of such
plants as Renanthera or Vanda coerula can come into the country although
I may be wrong.

.. . . Pam
Everything Orchid Management System
http://home.earthlink.net/~profpam/page3.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Munir wrote:
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

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:21:59 GMT in . net profpam wrote:
Munir,
5. And, I don't think that even sterile, in-vitro containers of such
plants as Renanthera or Vanda coerula can come into the country although
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I may be wrong.
pedant
may legally
/pedant
If tons of pot and crank and smack can make it across the border
despite an official war on drugs, I'm sure those can get across.
Of course the innocent and well meaning will be punished more than
the flagrant violators...

(It's been a "What can be done is not the same as what may legally
be done, and both are quite dissimilar to what should be done and what is
done" sort of morning)


--
Chris Dukes
Suspicion breeds confidence -- Brazil