CYMBIDIUMS AUSTRALIA 
Buying Cymbidiums, Buyer Beware 
efore I begin I'll admit that some may 
find the comments and views in this 
article to be contentious, but please 
remember that any criticism included here 
is directed at a minority of cymbidium 
(and other orchid) sellers and producers. 
The majority of cymbidium hybridisers 
and commercial cymbidium plant nurs- 
eries are honest, trustworthy and maintain 
ethical standards, but there are those, (as in 
any area of business) who are not and who 
get everyone else a bad name by associa- 
tion. Graham Morris touched on an area of 
concern relating to pirating mericlone tis- 
sue in part three of his series for beginners 
included in this issue and his comments 
inspired my comments here. (But please 
don’t blame Graham!) 
For the benefit of newer growers, or any 
grower who may not understand the meri- 
cloning process, here is a brief overview. 
Cymbidiums along with some other orchid 
genera can be cloned from plant tissue as 
explained by Graham Morris in our last 
issue. Such cloning is undertaken when a 
particular plant has shown desirable traits 
which would lead to it being in demand. 
Mericloning allows for the production of 
hundreds or even thousands of exact 
copies of the plant in question, with the 
producer then being able to make the 
resulting clones available within a couple 
of years, rather than those who may wish 
to own the plant having to wait many years 
for the chance of acquiring a division, or 
struck backbulb of it. Responsible produc- 
ers will normally only produce a few hun- 
dred clones from an initial meristem 
source, others may keep re dividing the tis- 
sue to produce thousands. As mutation is a 
possibility in the mericloning process, 
especially when excessive numbers of 
clones are made, it is a risky an irresponsi- 
ble practice to then produce more clones 
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by Rob Smith 
from the immature and unflowered meri- 
clones produced initially. Some would 
argue that all clones should only be pro- 
duced from the original plant, others 
believe that re cloning clones is acceptable 
as long as the clones have been grown to 
maturity and flowered and are proven to be 
fault free reproductions of the original. I 
don’t claim to be enough of an expert on 
mericloning to offer an opinion on that 
debate, but I doubt that re cloning 
unproven clones is a safe and ethical prac- 
tice. 
If you are buying mericlones I can only 
recommend that you buy from reputable 
sources. The majority of major nurseries 
fall into this category. Word of mouth, par- 
ticularly from respected persons within 
orchid clubs will also put you on the right 
track to sourcing responsible nurseries and 
sources. Ethical and reliable producers far 
outweigh the “dodgy” ones and generally, 
the dodgy ones will not be active and con- 
tributing members of orchid clubs, donat- 
ing their time and efforts to the clubs good, 
or the promotion of cymbidium growing. 
Club members may be reluctant to pass 
negative comment on someone, but it is 
often the case that what is not said says 
more than what is said. 
Of course not all cymbidiums you see 
for sale will be mericlones and not all cym- 
bidium sellers will be an established nurs- 
ery you either visit or deal with via mail 
order. Where you buy your orchids can 
also increase your risk of ending up with 
less than desirable plants. There are also 
plants which you will find available for 
sale in hardware chain stores, supermar- 
kets and other retail outlets, or trash and 
treasure markets and the like and many of 
those plants may in fact flowering 
seedlings, often of extremely poor quality, 
but dumped on the market for sale to the 
general public, who don’t know enough to 
recognise this fact. While a commercial 
nursery person wants and needs to get a 
return on the plants he/she grows, many of 
these plants really belong in a dumpster, 
not for sale. Long term this practice is 
short sighted to say the least, many of these 
plants will be lucky to survive under less 
than ideal culture and many may never 
flower again if they do survive. All the sale 
of sub standard cymbidiums (or any other 
sub standard plant) does is to increase the 
likelihood that the buyer will become dis- 
heartened and possibly give up on growing 
orchids, believing that they do not have the 
necessary “green thumb” to become suc- 
cessful with orchids. Long term this is 
harmful to every cymbidium, or other 
orchid nursery. While some people might 
protest at these remarks, just about every 
orchid enthusiast knows it to be true. On 
any weekend during the orchid season 
people can be seen carrying orchids to 
their cars in any major suburban shopping 
or garden centre and many of these orchids 
will be in the rubbish bin within weeks or 
months, after their “funeral flowers” have 
finally died. (For the benefit of newer 
growers the term “funeral flowers” refers 
to a weak or dying plant attempting to pro- 
duce flowers and set seed with its last 
ounce of energy.) Many of the remainder 
which do survive will be runts, or the result 
of unsuccessful breeding and may rarely 
produce flowers again, or at best produce 
a few weedy sub standard flowers on the 
occasional spike. There are some rep- 
utable nurseries which supply to major 
garden centres, or chain stores and not all 
orchids from these sorts of outlets will be 
rubbish, but the sad truth is a lot of them 
are and unfortunately they will end up 
being bought by people who don’t yet 
know how to tell a healthy, or descent 
orchid from an unhealthy one, or a dud. 
Sadly it is often the case that orchids from 
major chain store type outlets won’t even 
be bargains. It is often possible to buy 
quality orchids from specialist nurseries 
for the same, or only a little more (some- 
times even less) than the prices charged at 
these stores. 
Once again the recommendation to buy 
from reputable and established nurseries 
and hybridisers is good advice. If I sound 
like an advocate for the nursery industry 
I’m sorry, but the fact is that people with a 
reputation to protect usually try their best 
to do just that and won’t be knowingly 
caught selling rubbish. 
While most of my comments are essen- 
tially negative, the reality is that there will 
always be those who will do the wrong 
thing. Just because we are talking about an 
industry based on the production of living 
growing things of great beauty doesn’t 
mean that there won’t be the odd person 
involved who won’t try to make a buck 
any way they can. But it must be remem- 
bered that the unscrupulous are the minor- 
ity. That doesn’t mean they should be tol- 
erated, or that we should turn a blind eye 
to them. In fact the reverse and perhaps 
orchid clubs should be taking the lead in 
indentifying those who do not meet suit- 
able standards within the industry, even if 
on occasion they do happen to come from 
within our own ranks? | 
Rob Smith 
aussiecyms @internode.on.net 
The Australian Orchid Review, June/July 2009 
