"Shipping-resistant" plants

[Tanukimo]

Does anyone know which genera of CPs are most likely to survive being in transit for a long time (e.g. a week)? My first guess would be Utricularia, since they don't take up that much space but are there any others? This is for an overseas order that I might be making.

 

[Sashoke]

Not sure mate..

It might be interesting to note, that a small rooted Cephalotus cutting was in transit for 8 days before it got to my door and it was perfectly fine afterwards.

 

[w03]

Dormant tuberous Drosera, or most dormant things for that matter would probably be completely unscathed.

A week isn't really that much time, I would imagine most things could survive the trip as long as they don't get baked or frozen.

 

[NemJones]

IVe had a packet of gemmae last 2 and a half weeks in shipping.
Wistuba ships overseas and ive ehard their plants do just fine, but
I have never ordered from them or know how their shipping works.

 

[fredg]

If it's a week, all of them. Start worrying when it exceeds a month.

 

[Cthulhu138]

I've found that Mexican Pinguicula handle shipping for extended periods rather poorly. They are very quick to etiolate, this usually happens within a week. I've had no problem with other genera for up to 3 weeks though. Just keep in mind that if the plants are in transit for over a week or 2, they will be very soft from being bagged in high humidity and kept in the dark for so long. They will usually need higher humidity than normal for a few weeks while they acclimate.

 

[SubRosa]

If it's a week, all of them. Start worrying when it exceeds a month.

Provided temps remain reasonable, that's probably the case for most plants, provided they were healthy to start. This isn't directly relevant, but consider the following: in many years of working in the ornamental fish trade I've seen fish lost in transit arrive a full week after they were shipped alive and well. I can remember a specific instance of an order of marine stuff out of the Red Sea leaving Eilat Israel on a Tuesday (which should have been delivered Thursday at Philadelphia Intl Airport) get lost and despite calls to the airline and the shipper seemingly vanish. Until the following Monday when we got a rather rude call call from the airline asking us when the hell we were going to pick up our cargo which had been sitting there since Thursday! Of course we expected to find bags of fish chowder, but I went, picked them up and brought them back, unboxed and acclimated what was left alive. I distinctly remember survival was 85% on that shipment, down from 92% for that shipper's average mortality. These are very delicate fish people! Butterfly fish even! Worrying about a plant simply because it's been in transit for a week is ridiculous. That said, in the last few weeks I've had several shipments of orchids sent USPS Priority that I fretted greatly about. I was relying on the shippers and USPS being reliable in order to thread the needle to avoid having the plants in transit in this area on really cold days during a recent roller coaster ride our temps took. The shippers weren't really much of a concern, but USPS.......but my stars were aligned, and they did it!

 

[SubRosa]

I've found that Mexican Pinguicula handle shipping for extended periods rather poorly. They are very quick to etiolate, this usually happens within a week. I've had no problem with other genera for up to 3 weeks though. Just keep in mind that if the plants are in transit for over a week or 2, they will be very soft from being bagged in high humidity and kept in the dark for so long. They will usually need higher humidity than normal for a few weeks while they acclimate.

Yup. While the organism, be it plant or fish is sealed up tight, the environment within the container is changing and as it changes the organism tries to adapt. The longer it's in the container, the more out of whack with "normal" conditions the environment becomes, and the more pronounced any physiological changes to the organism. And the more critical carefully adapting the organism back to "normal" conditions becomes. I think the problem with Mexican Pings is that they're too good at adapting to the conditions inside the container! Etiolation is a smart move for a plant that suddenly finds itself needing more light. I guess they just take it too far too fast

 

[Tanukimo]

Thanks for the reassuring replies! I definitely won't forget about the need to transition plants that have been in transit a long time to normal conditions, since 3 out of 4 plants in a recent order of mine have died partly due to that.

 

[RSS]

The only two I've had personal experiences with are Utric graminifolia, about 10 days and the receiver said the leaves were more white than green but recovered just fine. The other would be a Ceph leaf pull that had the base of the leaf wrapped in some just moist LFS for a little over 7 days. Rooted just fine for me.