Anthurium seed. A BIG word of caution!

Not everyone is happy! You'll likely read about it elsewhere!

 

Dear friends,
I am quite new in your forum and I am not a botanist, just a hobby planter.

I have been reading your posts abt the Anthurium seeds and ofcourse appreciate your sensitivity on faking and even copying other's photos.

By the way, I am from Turkey (like the seed seller on e-bay), and what I know, Anthurium, as cut flowers, imported to us from Holland. But it is a very common flower with us for indoors and mostly produced by cuttings and also many people speak that they produce through seeds,which they get from the plant itself, although it is quite difficult. They mostly complain that the red ones do not give large enough leaves as the white ones. Since they are not the genius ones, as I believe.

I myself have never tried.

Just wanted to mention, after following your nice discussion.

Hi to all.

 

Thanks Tugo. The point of my posts were not to prevent anyone from selling seed. But it was to prevent anyone from buying bogus offerings. And even more, it was to prevent someone from taking photos that do not belong to themselves and using them as if they did!

Thanks again for your post!

 

Spoke too soon! They're back. One auction showing a handful of seeds IS NOT Anthurium seeds! They look like either Daffodil or garlic. But they ARE NOT Anthurium. Buyer.............Beware!!

 

Hi,
I had to register to this site and give an answer to a lot of messages.
I am a Turkish citizen. I am legally registered to ebay and trying to sell promtly at the site.
The plants are grown at the warehouses at northern Cyprus. I doupt any of the people that has written here just sitting on their chairs have ever seen Cyprus. Everyone is just using similar words, these plants only grow in central america, mexico, etc, and blah blah.
You are WRONG!
Come one day as my quest and see Cyprus and have a chance to observe a lot of tropical plants that are grown there. Just talking, I am selling. Not through ebay mostly but have at least 150 customers at Europe and USA at the moment who have been buying seeds from me at least for 5 years.
I understand that some people want to belive that these species are extremely rare, though can not understand the reason, but beleive me that they are not rare, sorry for you.
I just laugh to postings that these are not anthurium seeds, probably they never had a chance to see any seed in their life. If I had permission I was ready to give the addresses and emails of my customers who has been growing anthuriums with my seeds, but they do not want to be public.
Kind Regards

 

Dear ladybotany,
As you may have seen from my previous post, I am also from Turkey. I am not professional also do not trade. Just do it as hobby.

I also see these plants, very commonly in the houses, produced domestically and I know that also, for the plant lovers,we here in Turkey, they are not something special and rear. There is a huge community running after many other species.

Still ,I am not in the position to judge who is right or wrong. Try to send some seeds gratis to these friends, just to let them try themselves. Ofcourse, to every other new claimer you cannot do that, but for this time I think you can try that.

Was just a proposal.
Brgds

 

Tugo, you are describing the spathes of the hybrid form of Anthurium andreanum. There are over 800 scientifically described species of Anthurium and Anthurium andreanum is one of the smallest plants of the group. That is not even close to the Anthurium species being offered on eBay which produce enormous leaves and spathes that are often not as colorful. There is now a craze for these large types going on in Indonesia. As a result, they will pay very high prices for seeds, especially rare species. I just posted what I am about to post again on another thread. But this explains why ladybotany's offerings make no sense:

That is all very interesting. The world's top aroid botanist, Dr. Tom Croat, says they grow in only the places I specified. Here's a link to his paper:

http://www.aroid.org/genera/anthurium/abstrap1.htm

Ladybotany made a post on this thread and one other. This was my response to her:

As for your growing them in a warehouse, that is interesting. You told one person on eBay they were grown in South Africa. You told me they were in the United States. The story appears to change, doesn't it.

As for you're selling them 5 seeds at a time in a plain envelope shipped for $1, won't work! These seeds all have very short viability and will be completely crushed in the mail system in a plain envelope. But I'm not going to tell you here how to do it correctly! You go figure it out. They also die quickly and must be planted quickly in order to germinate. Even a few weeks can be too long. By the time you sell the first 5% of the spadix, the rest will already have died selling them 5 seeds at a time!

The seeds in one of your photos ARE NOT Anthurium! We have no idea what they are for certain, but they look like garlic. There are enough very knowledgeable growers in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world that we can easily recognize an Anthurium seed. These are not.

And lastly. Virtually every photo on you offerings was stolen. That is a violation of International copyright law! You stole many from the website of the International Aroid Society which is why your first batch of auctions was taken down. Yesterday I tracked down every one of your photos as having been stolen from the internet. A lot of them had the copyright notice posted directly beside the photo. Still, you stole them. You were attempting to use the property of others to sell your "seeds". I notified almost every one of those people yesterday their photos had been taken. I know for certain the website in Palm Beach, FL has reported the violation to eBay. eBay has a strict policy of not allowing the use of stolen photographs. Many of the photos you used do not even match the plants you ar naming! One auction that was taken down was for a species so rare not one single botanical garden in the U.S. has one on display. And you were offering 5 seeds for $1.99!

 

Sorry Steve,
I do not know so much details. I only proposed something.
I believe the second part of your post (after the link) should be addressed to ladybotany, since I am not the seller and I do not know her either.

Don't want to be mis understood,so I will stop commenting here.

Hope you can find the right point.
Brgds

 

Sorry for that, I just copied and pasted the note to her from another thread.

 

No problem Steve,
Life is still beautiful:))

It is also strange that 2 Turkish people cross on the same platform, which is soooo far away from us.

I am in this site, just to learn more and exchange.

We have also a very good and sophisticated site here for all plants and etc. Although it is in Turkish, by just a simple registration, you can see the photos also and if you wish you can ask me the details,if any you are interested in.

Through this site, we also buy/exchange plants and seeds, between us and also from abroad.

www.agaclar.net

best regards

 

I think all of us are here to learn and share. Thanks for the link. It is just somewhat alarming to many when "seeds" of very rare and uncommon species suddenly show up on eBay. And even more alarming when those seeds don't look anything like Anthurium. And, of course, when the stories vary and the photos often don't even match the plants and were taken from other websites, that is a gigantic red flag.

 

A couple days ago I had someone from Indonesia email me with the usual request - "I want to buy Anthurium hookeri seeds". The funny thing is I had three full ripe spadices on my hookeri and I just let them dry out and die because I had no room for them. At that time I hadn't received an email like this one I just got.

So I thought I'd show him a picture of my hookeri with four more spadices swelling with seeds coming on. He wanted the plant but made no offer. I think some of these people are bark and no bite; they don't have the resources or the initiative to do what is necessary to acquire a good plant. They just want to see if they can get something good from someone who doesn't know any better and who will sell it cheap.

I told him this plant was so large that he would need an agent to come get it, crate it, and escort it on the airplane to Indonesia along with all the proper paperwork. If I were trying to get a plant like that here, I sure as heck would think about doing it that way. I might even insist on sitting next to the plant for the whole trip, even if it meant sitting in the cargo area!

LariAnn
Aroidia Research
http://aroidiaresearch.org

 

Hi,

By the way, just search at internet, the flower shops at Turkey, they do make sales through internet also, and you will find a lot of anthurium plants there for sale, about $25 for a plant that is 15 inches tall. Who will insist on the rarity of these plants? Please be aware of the fake market that some people are trying to create. Maybe they do want to believe and make us believe that the plants owned by them are rare and valuable. NO, they are not.
Kind Regards

 

May I suggest you take a course in botany? A great number of the 800 species of Anthurium are very rare. And the majority look nothing like the plants grown in Turkey which are hybrid forms. And I sell nothing!

 

For the record, Anthurium seeds and plants are as variable as can be imagined. There are diminutive species like little jewels, and giants that look like something from the Jurassic period (I LIKE those!). The leaves go from very thin and straplike to huge cordate or lance shaped laminae. Inflorescences can be bright and colorful to being so small and inconspicuous that if you don't know what to look for,you'd think the plant was sterile. Seeds vary from almost the size of a lima bean, to so small you think you don't have a viable seed. Anthurium is a great and wonderful genus of aroids that has tremendous variety. Anthurium andreanum and its hybrids are but the tip of one little peak on a huge iceberg.

LariAnn
Aroidia Research

 

Hi,
I do not have enough time and mood to reply all the questions, though that shouldn't be understood as if I have no answers.
Tomorrow, 26 Friday I'll be flying to Cyprus. Will take some photos at the greenhouses and the plants, so I think this will be the only way to stop this meaningless forum.
Kind Regards

 

I'm sure we would all love to see your parent plants and seeds. But only the real parents, not photos from the internet.

 

Hi,
Found a Turkish seller, want to share it with you to show that this plant is not really that rare as many people think. Below is the link of a Turkish flower store that sells through internet also, has priced an anthurium to 80 turkish liras ( about $65)

www.sevgicicek.com.tr/shop/images/A...=/images?q=anthurium&svnum=10&um=1&hl=tr&sa=N

 

The link does not work. The hybrid variations from Anthurium andreanum are extremely common. But the majority of the species you indicate you have seeds to sell are not common. Many are quite rare. There has never been anyone produce viable seeds from 50 or 60 species at the same time. Just read what Brian just wrote on the other thread. He breeds a lot of them. And so does LariAnn. No one has that many seeds from that many species. No one!

 

Ladybotany,

That's a bad link you gave there; nothing exists at that link. I tried http://www.sevqicicek.com.tr/shop/images/ and it is "forbidden". this is not how you are going to convince anyone!

 

Hi All,

For those of you that may be interested, you can see good examples of what Anthurium seeds look like at the following links; please forgive the repetition if someone has given this information already:

http://striweb.si.edu/esp/tesp/plant_pictures/i_sp190.mx.jpg

http://striweb.si.edu/esp/tesp/plant_pictures/i_sp201.mx.jpg

http://striweb.si.edu/esp/tesp/plant_pictures/i_sp215.mx.jpg

http://striweb.si.edu/esp/tesp/plant_pictures/i_sp198.mx.jpg

Even to the untrained eye, these image links of four different Anthurium species seeds look nothing like the supposed Anthurium seeds in question here at

http://cgi.ebay.com/7-Anthurium-see...ryZ25463QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I would be curious to know what anyone believes these "seeds" to really be. I have worked with Anthurium seeds for over 25 years and they don't look like Anthurium to me. Without a size reference it is difficult to know the true size, but my guess is some species of bulb.

Please be aware that the above linked images are copyright © of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. I hope we do not see these images on eBay anytime soon.

Regards, Scott Hyndman

 

Try this link that I found from the same site:

http://sevgicicek.com.tr/shop/product_info.php?products_id=62

Looks like a very common, but nice Anthurium andreanum hybrid. That is a long ways from Anthurium superbum which would probably be considered unattractive by the usual buyer of a hybrid like the one in this picture.

Regards, Scott Hyndman

PS. Why the anonymous use of "LadyBotany"? Why not come out and give your real name like everyone else does?

 

Hi,
Thank you for giving the correct link, I have just copied and pasted it to just show people who thinks that anthurium plants can not be grown at Turkey. Frankly at any flower shop in Turkey, you will be able to find different kinds of this plant and not expensive. They do grow them here, do not import and sell to such funny prices, like $50.
I do not sell plants as it is hard to send them but can find addresses of flower shops who will be willing to send plants to whoever wants.

Kind Regards.

P.S. LadyBotany was my nick at ebay so repeated it here just to identify that I am the one who is selling at ebay. My name is Asu Tufan, and yes I am a lady.

 

Thank you Scott! For any reading this who may doubt that Scott is truly an aroid expert, he is a former officer of the International Aroid Society. The very society from where many of the photos used on some eBay auctions were taken. Scott knows what he is talking about!

And Scott is dead right, the photo link in Turkey shows only a very common hybrid form of Anthurium andreanum. None of the Anthurium species listed on the eBay auctions in question look anything like this one! The vast majority do not produce a spathe that is either colorful nor would be considered beautiful by anyone other than a serious aroid collector. If ladybotany is selling these hybrids, then PLEASE, show photos of the actual hybrids. Don't just use scientific names from truly rare species accompanied by photos stolen from the internet.

And despite the repeated claims in this and one other thread Anthurium species are not rare, many are extremely rare! A lot of us pay very good money for a genuine specimen! And I strongly suspect that is what is driving the sale of these seeds using the scientific names of rare and semi-rare Anthurium!

People "grow" Anthurium all over the world. But rare species are not common all over the world. And they do not grow naturally outside Mexico, Central America, South America and the West Indies.

 

Hi,
Some more sites from Turkish growers and sellers. Please stop saying that anthurium will not grow in Turkey, yes it will not in nature by it's own, but any plant can be grown at greenhouses at any place in the worls.
Kind Regards

www.bahcevan.com/images/anthurium.jpg
www.bahce.biz/.../images/anthurium_jpg.jpg
www.batem.gov.tr/bolumler/sus/Anthurium2.jpg
gabrielsculptor.com/.../Anthurium%20Flower.jpg