Some crazy-huge rafflesianas...

[paphioboy]

Tissue culture is a good way...but does those company doing take and give back? Poach a plant directly or indirectly in the name of conservation, but after mass cloning, do they bother to return a plant or two back to nature? After a while when one variant of a species turns out to be common as a result of their mass cloning and hobbyist propagation, aren't they taking a few different variant from the wild again just because of profit? It's more like a cycle of dirty stuff going on but wrapped with clean looking outfit...it's more like doing a good thing to let you know they are good, but what happens behind the scene looks more towards sweeping under the carpet...

Siwei, ok this is my view. I do not know if the companies who do TC do return plants to the wild, but if you just take this into consideration... Firstly, what makes you think they take the entire plant? For tissue culture, a small portion of the plant with a meristem is more than enough. So at most (if they are responsible), they would take only 1 or 2 cuttings off the mother plant, but the end result is many many more plants if you compare with taking a cutting, planting it, waiting for it to grow before cutting again to propagate. Think of how much TC companies have reduced pressure on the demand for wild CPs..! Every little plantlet that they sell satisfies the demand of a consumer to obtain a nepenthes, which otherwise would be obtained through illegal means (poaching). Hope this makes you understand better because Tc is definitely a good thing for conservation...