Is there any official way to document plant lineage?
What I mean to ask is, is there any way to prove that
a plant that someone sells to me is what they say it
is? Or are you required to take the word of the seller?

Obviously some sellers are reputable enough, so you
don't have to question their plants. But in the case
of an orchid/garden show (or on-line sites and auctions
for that metter), where young plants are being sold,
how can you be sure you are getting what you pay for?

Thanks,
Chris

On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 18:47:00 GMT, Christopher J Barown
wrote:

Is there any official way to document plant lineage?
What I mean to ask is, is there any way to prove that
a plant that someone sells to me is what they say it
is? Or are you required to take the word of the seller?

Obviously some sellers are reputable enough, so you
don't have to question their plants. But in the case
of an orchid/garden show (or on-line sites and auctions
for that metter), where young plants are being sold,
how can you be sure you are getting what you pay for?

Thanks,
Chris

Know the seller and/or the plant. Pray.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/albums.php

"Christopher J Barown" wrote in message
...
Is there any official way to document plant lineage?
What I mean to ask is, is there any way to prove that
a plant that someone sells to me is what they say it
is? Or are you required to take the word of the seller?

Interesting question. In a word, yes and no.... *G*

In this case knowledge is power. If you are a beginner you kinda have to
take the word of the person selling the plant. If you have a bit of
experience and knowledge of species then you know what a species should look
like and you can kind sorta tell if the plant *is* that species or
contributes to that hybrid. Unless its a very complex hybrid, in which case
your guess is as good as anyone's. But unless someone's trying to pass of a
small plant that everyone knows is a big plant, then yo kinda have to trust
the vendor.

There's a case of the Vanda coerulea (a species) that was absolutely the
most marvelous flower this species has ever produced, so it was given an FCC
award. Some people thought that it simply HAD to be a hybrid because
coerulea simply NEVER has the shape this flower had. So the owner had a DNA
analysis done on the plant and sure enough the plant was a hybrid, so the
award was withdrawn. The owner didn't have to have the analysis done. He
was in his rights to tell everyone to shut up. But he is an honorable
person and probably wondered about it himself. So he undertook the expense
of the test. Voila.


Obviously some sellers are reputable enough, so you
don't have to question their plants. But in the case
of an orchid/garden show (or on-line sites and auctions
for that metter), where young plants are being sold,
how can you be sure you are getting what you pay for?

You really don't and there have been cases where the tags get mixed up at
shows, people pull tags and think they put them back on the right plant, but
really they didn't. I bought what i thought was a white catt Mount Hood
'Mary' and it turned out to be a deep luscious red, which I think was
actually Owen Holmes, becasue it was in the rack right next to the 'Mary's.
So now I got an Owen Holmes that is drop dead gorgeous but I can't prove its
what it is. No difference to me.

Sometimes if uo are lucky a hybrid is so well known that any idiotcan
identify it. more commonly there are so many that look exactly the same like
green and white paphs for example, that no one can tell them apart. Can't
tell the players wthout a score card.

Most of the time what the vendor sells is what the plant is, online or
otherwise. I can't vouch for online (ebay) sellers or plants that ordinary
people trade/sell online for that matter.

K Barrett

"Christopher J Barown" wrote in message
...
Is there any official way to document plant lineage?
What I mean to ask is, is there any way to prove that
a plant that someone sells to me is what they say it
is? Or are you required to take the word of the seller?

Interesting question. In a word, yes and no.... *G*

In this case knowledge is power. If you are a beginner you kinda have to
take the word of the person selling the plant. If you have a bit of
experience and knowledge of species then you know what a species should look
like and you can kind sorta tell if the plant *is* that species or
contributes to that hybrid. Unless its a very complex hybrid, in which case
your guess is as good as anyone's. But unless someone's trying to pass of a
small plant that everyone knows is a big plant, then yo kinda have to trust
the vendor.

There's a case of the Vanda coerulea (a species) that was absolutely the
most marvelous flower this species has ever produced, so it was given an FCC
award. Some people thought that it simply HAD to be a hybrid because
coerulea simply NEVER has the shape this flower had. So the owner had a DNA
analysis done on the plant and sure enough the plant was a hybrid, so the
award was withdrawn. The owner didn't have to have the analysis done. He
was in his rights to tell everyone to shut up. But he is an honorable
person and probably wondered about it himself. So he undertook the expense
of the test. Voila.


Obviously some sellers are reputable enough, so you
don't have to question their plants. But in the case
of an orchid/garden show (or on-line sites and auctions
for that metter), where young plants are being sold,
how can you be sure you are getting what you pay for?

You really don't and there have been cases where the tags get mixed up at
shows, people pull tags and think they put them back on the right plant, but
really they didn't. I bought what i thought was a white catt Mount Hood
'Mary' and it turned out to be a deep luscious red, which I think was
actually Owen Holmes, becasue it was in the rack right next to the 'Mary's.
So now I got an Owen Holmes that is drop dead gorgeous but I can't prove its
what it is. No difference to me.

Sometimes if uo are lucky a hybrid is so well known that any idiotcan
identify it. more commonly there are so many that look exactly the same like
green and white paphs for example, that no one can tell them apart. Can't
tell the players wthout a score card.

Most of the time what the vendor sells is what the plant is, online or
otherwise. I can't vouch for online (ebay) sellers or plants that ordinary
people trade/sell online for that matter.

K Barrett

Unless it's a species (and even then), the answer is no. Many of the
plants I own have 8+ generations of hybridization in their lineage, i.e.
the genetic makeup is from 2^8=256 different plants. Even with genetic
analysis, you will not be able to tell what's what. Furthermore
(AxB)x(CxD) is genetically equivalent to (AxC)x(BxD) in terms to gene
pool, and yet they will have different names....so even if you could ID
all the species used to make a hybrid, it's useless without knowing the
order of hybridization.

Just hope.

Cheers,
Xi

Susan Erickson wrote:
On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 18:47:00 GMT, Christopher J Barown
wrote:


Is there any official way to document plant lineage?
What I mean to ask is, is there any way to prove that
a plant that someone sells to me is what they say it
is? Or are you required to take the word of the seller?

Obviously some sellers are reputable enough, so you
don't have to question their plants. But in the case
of an orchid/garden show (or on-line sites and auctions
for that metter), where young plants are being sold,
how can you be sure you are getting what you pay for?

Thanks,
Chris


Know the seller and/or the plant. Pray.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/albums.php

There's no real way to verify parentage in orchids, no. Orchid
growers are still a world better than, say, rose growers in that hybrids
have a registry that (if everyone plays nice) allows one to track a plant
back to its parent species- in theory. It is also my understanding that in
order to be awarded, judges have to know what the parents look like, and
note that the progeny is consistent with the putative parentage. Maybe
someone can elaborate upon that stray notion of mine.

That having been said, there is a large margin for error. For
example, some registered crosses from way the heck back when don't have
any parents listed for them (!). It has also been speculated that some
species were "improved" with other species, but retained the same name.
For example, some odontoglossums were "flattened" with the help of another
species, but are still reported to be a species, and not a hybrid. There
are also issues with accidental pollination; one has to make sure the
pollinia of the host plant (the one which will bear the capsule) have been
removed so that they are not accidentally deposited upon the stigmatic
surface as the flower ages and collapses. Many years ago, an artificial
form of this "mixed pollination" was trendy- placing the pollinia of 2 or
more plants on the stigmatic surface of the pod parent. No reputable
breeder would participate in such nonsense today. I hope. Still, nobody
has to prove in a court of law that the plant has had its parentage
provided for in a responsible manner. Moreover, there is a financial
incentive to provide that plant with a name, as unidentified orchids- no
matter how pretty- are worth far less for hybridizing. I know of one
grower who passed up his personal holy grail- a green phalaenopsis-
because it had no tag.

While these issues seem straightforward for divergent parents-
say, a pinkish doritaenopsis versus a moth-white phal, very different
plants- these issues become quite serious when trying to tell if there has
been any incidental "contamination" when dealing with line-bred plants, or
physically similar flowers. For example, let's say I'm breeding encyclias.
Personally, I can't tell the damned things apart. Anyway- if I were to
cross, say, Encyclia oncidioides with Encyclia tampensis, how would I know
if the progeny were, in fact, a hybrid, and not a very pink-lipped
tampensis, or a bland oncidioides? This becomes a serious consideration
with line-bred oncidiums, epidendrums, encyclias, cattleyas, phalaenopsis,
and other genera. Not the least concern should be not if the hybridizer,
grower, or the person repotting them screwed up, but if the *lab* screwed
up. Admittedly, I crank out a lot of plants, but there's been once or
twice where I had a flask labeled as one genus, and the contents were very
clearly that of another. Very early on in my career, I had one flask of
cattleyas with a sport that grew at least 4x faster and 10x heavier than
any of its colleagues. Eventually, it developed characteristics of a
catasetum while still in the flask. It was about 4" tall, while its
cohorts were 1". Catasetums grow like weeds; cattleyas are a bit slower.
Going back through my notes, I observed that the week before I sowed the
cattleyas, I put down (among other things) a flask of catasetums. It
dawned upon me that some seed must have stayed behind in the tubes I used
for disinfecting seed the week before.

Since then, I have autoclaved the seed disinfection tubes between
use, destroying any remaining seeds. That was about 5 years ago, and there
hasn't been that sort of problem since. Still, every now and again, I find
a transcription error; my notes are meticulous and complete (described by
a buddy of mine whom I consulted while building my database as "the most
detailed system" he had ever seen), but humans are prone to error even
under the best of circumstances. I now have a system that relies upon
barcodes and label printers, which largely puts the operator at the mercy
of the system. While not without their errors, barcode systems have a
substitution error rate of about 1 per million characters scanned. That's
at least an order of magnitude better than a human can do.

Mistakes happen. Anyone who has ever found a supermarket phal with
a plant tag that says "Onc. Sherry Baby" can attest to that. Then there
are intrinsic flaws in the system ("improvements" made without
recognition, hybrids without parents, that sort of thing), disreputable
dealers (which are almost certainly in the minority), and possibly a
little intentional misdirection.

The email address in the header is not valid. Send no mail there.

-AJHicks
Chandler, AZ

The long and short of it:

You pays your money, you takes your chances.