re: #450 ggt

As long as the various species are somewhere in the world, all will be well. They can come back to the US someday.

Well, there are species lost, especially in SE Asia and in the Amazon.

But even more, cultivars are lost. Many orchid cultivars have breeding history stretching back to the 19th century. Some orchids can take as long as humans to reach sexual maturity, and thus breeding programs can take decades.

I just want to rant that our society has become so short-term minded that multi-year and multi-decadal efforts are becoming rare in our society. That btw is one of the contributing factors in the loss of a manned space-program - politicians are unwilling to take multi-billion dollar gambles on projects that won’t pay off until many years have passed. National energy policy has languished for the same reason.

Horticulture is reflective of society as a whole, not unlike art.