Hybrid Nepenthes Discussion

[Nepenthesis]

For the record, I also think many existing PDF hybrids are pretty. Just really despised by most people.

 

[hcarlton]

Great to see everyone does have their own opinion on this... makes for an interesting topic....
I personally like both. The species are fascinating because each one is so perfectly unique and odd in its own way. Hard to beat a well grown jamban, spectabilis, or hamata..... there are some characteristics you can't get with hybrids (great example is the tooth size on many species: you can come close, but not quite there). Also, I am a bit of a conservationist myself, and have the viewpoint that pure species should be grown and kept around even if just as a mark as to what once was.
On the other hand, I love many hybrids as well. I have a couple of platychila hybrids, as well as the famous Miranda and Mixta plants, among others, because they also have characteristics the species just don't have. I have yet to see a northiana or maxima that gets the same kind of bright, cherry-stripey color and pattern mix you see on Miranda, and the hybrid is fantastically easy to grow too, which is a great attractor. I am also working on creating my own hybrids, like new clones of splendiana x ventricosa, or maxima x ventricosa. It all depends on what you really are looking for. Some people like wild colors and patterns, which are found mostly on hybrids, others odd shapes, and some like simple plants, like my graciliflora, which is far outclassed by my ventricosa x gymnamphora in colors and pattern, but a winner on grace.
I think it really does just boil down to what you like personally.

 

[UnstuckinTime]

I must admit that I'm pretty torn, too. I'm actually not as concerned about conservation as my original post may have suggested. I'm sure that, should a species go extinct in the wild, enough people grow it (both professionally and at the hobby-level) that perhaps it can live on, even to be reintroduced one day. But I love the few hybrids I have, and in a lot of ways they can be more beautiful than species plants. But having arrived decades late to the orchid "scene," I find it kind of frustrating that a lot of the species that I see in photographs or mentioned in crosses are largely unavailable to the layman. Only people who were there from "the start" may have those species plants, growing in the back of some immense greenhouse, nearly forgotten. Growers could make more beautiful and interesting plants that are thus more valuable, so they did so by making exponentially more complicated hybrids. I feel bad for future people trying to enter our hobby and they won't be able to find species plants because they were deemed "unsellable" or were "too difficult to grow at the wholesale level." The reductionist scientist in me gets really worked up over this. But I doubt that there is anything that could be done about it.

 

[Whimgrinder]

I feel bad for future people trying to enter our hobby and they won't be able to find species plants because they were deemed "unsellable" or were "too difficult to grow at the wholesale level." The reductionist scientist in me gets really worked up over this. But I doubt that there is anything that could be done about it.

I don't believe that is how things will play out, not at all. Any genus that is experiencing growth in interest will also see an increase in availability of plants, be they species or hybrids. No matter how commercial growers approach the problems of production for any given species/grex, they are motivated to produce as much plant material as is feasible, and to distribute it at prices the market will bear. The things we hobbyists desire translate into motivational forces that come to bear on commercial producers. Time, however, is a major limiting factor, so it can take years for specific plants to make their way from a nursery lab (regardless of whether we are talking seeds cultured in lab, or tissue cultured clones produced in mass). People are scrambling to obtain N. edwardsiana, no matter what the source or how outrageous the cost, and yet folks seem to think source entities are "holding back" on the growers, to artificially inflate prices or some such nonsense. It takes a long time to produce a batch of tissue cultured plants and get them into a condition for sale. Anyone who knows how tiny Wistuba plants are realizes Andreas is pushing out merchandise as quickly as he can (some would argue TOO quickly), not withholding valued species in order to gouge buyers.

That said, availability of the newest darlings of the Nepenthes world will eventually reach a point where they can be had for sensible prices, and market demand will be more easily met. To suggest otherwise is kinda silly, IMO. Keep in mind as well that availability happens in cycles: a batch of plants leaves the producer, is bought up and then there is an apparent "drought", which someone -inevitably - claims is a new and terrifying trend indicating decline in species availability.

 

[corky]

interesting hearing the opinions,i must say i much prefer species,i like the fact i am growing a plant that occurs naturally ,but i love the look of some hybrids but simply do not have the room,must say this hard to get species thing does not seem to happen in the UK i can get just about any species i can think of,maybe not from a retailer but through forums

 

[BioZest]

I don't believe that is how things will play out, not at all. Any genus that is experiencing growth in interest will also see an increase in availability of plants, be they species or hybrids. No matter how commercial growers approach the problems of production for any given species/grex, they are motivated to produce as much plant material as is feasible, and to distribute it at prices the market will bear. The things we hobbyists desire translate into motivational forces that come to bear on commercial producers. Time, however, is a major limiting factor, so it can take years for specific plants to make their way from a nursery lab (regardless of whether we are talking seeds cultured in lab, or tissue cultured clones produced in mass). People are scrambling to obtain N. edwardsiana, no matter what the source or how outrageous the cost, and yet folks seem to think source entities are "holding back" on the growers, to artificially inflate prices or some such nonsense. It takes a long time to produce a batch of tissue cultured plants and get them into a condition for sale. Anyone who knows how tiny Wistuba plants are realizes Andreas is pushing out merchandise as quickly as he can (some would argue TOO quickly), not withholding valued species in order to gouge buyers.

That said, availability of the newest darlings of the Nepenthes world will eventually reach a point where they can be had for sensible prices, and market demand will be more easily met. To suggest otherwise is kinda silly, IMO. Keep in mind as well that availability happens in cycles: a batch of plants leaves the producer, is bought up and then there is an apparent "drought", which someone -inevitably - claims is a new and terrifying trend indicating decline in species availability.

I completely agree with what you said about motivational forces for nurseries, and that is something that might scare me in the future. If this hobby ends up going super mainstream there are going to be a lot more new and inexperienced growers, who want plants that are easy and rewarding. This is the case with many hybrids. So the nurseries might be pressured to produce more hybrids or more common plants rather than more plants like N. hamata or edwardsiana or macrophylla. This means that prices for rarer plants would inevitably go up from their already high prices. So, really the only thing we can do is keep up the demand for these plants...which I don't think will be a problem for most people on this forum .

 

[Whimgrinder]

So, really the only thing we can do is keep up the demand for these plants...which I don't think will be a problem for most people on this forum .

So what you are really saying is that the very thing you first stated concern for, isn't actually a problem since you believe the CP community will continue to fuel the need for these plants, am I reading that right?! LOL

 

[BioZest]

So what you are really saying is that the very thing you first stated concern for, isn't actually a problem since you believe the CP community will continue to fuel the need for these plants, am I reading that right?! LOL

That was like...yesterday. I've changed.

I also said that as a grower I prefer species. What I meant in my first post was that I wouldn't be opposed to a hybrid that had very similar (almost identical) traits to the species. I don't really care if is genetically considered to be that species as long as it looks like it.

 

[Dexenthes]

In nature there are innumerable different selective forces that act on the existence of Nepenthes species. One of the largest ones is hybridization. I believe that many of the unique endemic species we see today are actually the product of ancient hybridization events. Some species even today are theorized to basically just be complex hybrids. Humans are just the next best greatest force of selection on Nepenthes and we are doing what they have always done: hybridizing.

What is this plant?



or this one?



How about this?



Or this?



All of these plants are growing basically right next to each other. And amongst all of them are there alleged parents. But many of the parents, too, are dubious themselves.

If this is N. pulchra,



Then what is this?



Some even say that N. pulchra itself is not really a species as much as it is an ancient and ongoing mess of an offspring between N. truncata, N. cecilae and N. surigaoensis. And after seeing its habitat, I have to say that I agree.

My point being in all this that hybridization is totally natural and really what we call a species and what we call a hybrid has never been concrete. Splitters no doubt claim a dozen new species a year that others would say are just hybrids, but at the same time, the plants exist, they grow where they do and they look unique enough, so why is it not a species? I think any one of the plants photoed above, if put onto a mountain top with no existing Nepenthes and then later disovered, would be described as a new species by at least somebody.

That being said, I think it is extremely important that we keep plentiful supply of the "true" species around in cultivation and also be very strict with our labeling. I like a hybrid that I know the parents of. Its when we get into the realm of plants just being cool plants, and not having a written history about their lineage that the lines truly start to blur and the meaning behind a plants genes are lost. I think that is what happened in the orchid trade. Too many pretty flowers with pretty names, not enough people who care about where the plants come from.

I would hope that the Nepenthes hobby is a little more conscious, but who's to say these days.

Honestly that is why I am no big fan of the "Poi Dogs" from Hawaii. That's just a lot of muts and confusion added to an industry which is already wrought with tons of debate and contention. But of course the other plants he grows...


Anyway that's my two cents.