Strange gifts
I visited a succulent-grower after work today and I bought one or two plants but left with an armload. This grower likes to frequent traditional herb markets and buy bulbs and caudiciforms because many of them are used medicinally although he repots them and sells them again. This is a practice that leaves me feeling very ambivalent. While it is illegal to collect plants from the wild to prevent stripping of plants from their habitats, herbalists may collect and sell medicinal herbs for traditional use and there are a couple of herb markets around. Although the grower I know rationalises buying from the herbalists by saying that he is 'saving' the plants, the fact that people buy them encourages herbalists to go and collect more. It is also true that many of these plants do not survive being transplanted. So although I didn't go there with the intention of buying wild-collected plants or pay for any of them, that is what I got.
The large brown root-like shape is a Dioscorea and it belongs to the yam family, and is a natural source of cortisone. These are being overharvested from the wild. Of the bulbs, 3 are Ledebouria, one is a Scilla and there is also a large caudiciform Euphorbia. None of these are endangered in any way.
Not all of the plants I was given are medicinal or wild-collected, the long grey stems are Wild Grapes or Cyphostemma and the two tiny little cactus-like objects are small Euphorbia and and I know that these were grown by him or bought from others who grew them.
All of this leaves me with a dilemma: not to buy plants from him again in order to avoid being given illegally collected plants or just turn a blind eye and give the plants a chance to grow again. What would you do?
I would buy plants.
And if you don’t buy it, it will continue to collect them anyway!
Because I think if you do not buy, someone else will buy.
And these plants get a big chance to survive with you!
I hope you are not overestimating my growing abilities. Many of these plants simply will not survive being transplanted.
No, I do not overestimate your abilities!
I think that there is no lover of flowers, in which some plant did not die.
You have more chances, knowledge, patience so that they survive!
Keep them. Grow them and and then have a legitement avenue for sale. It's a global problem, so do your part being a plant lover to rescue and then provide a source small it may be for people to buy from you. Environmentaly friendly, sustainable and educational.
Thanks, that's one way to look at it. The debate gets so polarised here
I hope yours take and you can grow more from them.
Some of them should be easy enough
How come they are illegal? Oh.
Those would look like "medicine" for my grandma.
It's illegal to strip them out of the wild. Many plants have become extinct in the wild because of people removing them to grow in gardens
Oh!!! Well now that's a problem. How come no one said anything to him? He's a bad person '( don't go there anymore.
He's not the person collecting them, he buys from the herbalists
You are the right person these strange looking roots finally come to you! Waiting to see them with leaves!
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Ok. I planted them in pots today
We have some people who rent out plots of land, a good ecological situation and grow various medicinal plants on them. Dried, packed and sold in pharmacies. For them, this is often a good business.
The situation here is that some plants are plentiful in the wild but others are terribly slow-growing so either way, there isn't much money to be made from growing medicinal herbs
I LOVE NATURE ❤ GREAT HURBS, WONDERFUL WORK. LOVE YOUR STYLE.
Thank you
While it is illegal to take wild cactus from their environment, I do condone rescuing plants that are doomed to die because they were uprooted or are already dying from lack of water or predation.
That becomes a slippery slope, I think