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  Philodendron $piritus-$ancti (a.k.a. $anta leopoldina)
From: "Eduardo Goncalves" edggon at hotmail.com> on 2001.11.05 at 16:34:54(7734)
Dear aroider$,

Ok, I tryied to keep myself out of this discussion, but I think I have
some info on this species you may not know (that I only discovered after
publishing that article). Julius? idea is very good indeed, but I think it
may not work properly. Roberto Kautsky, the man that discovered this species
some time ago, has been looking for fruits in the wild for decades, and he
couldn?t find it. He also has attempted to hand pollinate it, with no
success. I have some information (I won?t say who told me) that no pollen
could be found at inflorescences during the time it was supposed to be at
the male phase. Maybe this "species" is a degenerate natural hybrid, who
knows! Maybe the most beautiful plants are sterile "sports". Or maybe it is
just difficult to breed and too specialized pollinators have been destroyed
with the forests. How much time we have?
It seems that P. spiritus-sancti is an evolutionary dead-end. Some say
it would be extinct soon, with or without human interference. It seems
almost as stupid to breed as a giand panda, and it is also proportionally as
beautiful as these amazing mammals. It is hard to wonder people saying that
they preffer to keep their captive giant pandas? value than try to rise
their numbers in nature. However, we really think that plants are different
things. You will enjoy your plant during your lifetime, but there is no
warranty that someone will take care of this after you pass away. Why not
keep it for the next generations? Even if it can be micropropagated, it
will remains as a slow grower and hard-to-grow plant. It needs a warm and
humid place all year round.
Anyway, this discussion makes me think that I SHOULD TRY TO DO IT, so I
will consider it more seriously. I will never spend US$ 600,00 for a single
plant, because the same amount of money can help to save many acres of
forests in the third world. Anyway, you better keep this plant as rare and
expensive as you want there in the USA (or Europe). I will try to save an
endangered species here, and it seems that clonal propagation is the only
practical way for dealing with it. In my humble opinion, if you sell an
endangered species for such amount of money, you are contributing to its
extinction. What about destroying the last wild ones to rise the value of
the captive plants? There are less than 5 specimens known in nature! Next
time I go to Espirito Santo state, I will put price tags on the last wild
plants...

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