Al wrote:
While I am shopping for plants in Malasiaian markets and I come across
mature plants of Paphiopedilum
gigantifolium known only to grow in river gorges in the Sulawesi, Indonesia
(a different country but a shared common island) and only recently described
in 1997 what should I do?

This plant, BTW, is (or was) being listed as available from flask in one US
nursery online catalog, along with CITES permits if requested.


In my opinion? That's an easy one. Go home and buy a flask or
seedling from that nursery, if you are inclined to grow the species.
Since the flasks are already available, buying the plant in the market
can't be justified on the grounds of conservation. If you buy the
plant, you encourage the merchant to buy more collected plants. That
encourages the smugglers to rip more out of the wild in Sulawesi. Even
if that particular plant ends up as compost, you do less harm by
refusing to buy it.

If the plant were legally collected in a sustainable manner, the
ethical calculus would be somewhat different. I'm thinking of that guy
in "Orchid Fever" who collects Cyps in Minnesota. There, you would
have to decide whether you agreed with the collectors or with the
people who want to replant the cyps in the wild, but ethical people
could probably come down on either side of the question. That doesn't
seem to be happening with the tropical slippers, though.