Anthurium seeds, Anthurium plants, Buy Anthurium seeds, Exotic Rainforest rare tropical plants

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This page will help you understand why they are sometimes difficult to purchase.
Sorry, we do not sell Anthurium or seed!

Why are Anthurium Seeds sometimes difficult to Buy?

Aroids in the genus Anthurium are strictly a neo-tropical genus found naturally only in Central America, South America and the West Indies. There are currently approximately 800 species known to science and many are not common plant species. Growers do grow Anthurium, especially hybrid variations, all over the world, but the true species are not easily found, nor are they common outside their native range. Anthurium have recently become a large cash crop in the country of India and have been grown for many years in Hawaii. From questions asked on the internet some people appear to believe Anthurium species commonly grow naturally in Hawaii, on Pacific islands, and Asia. They do not. Only imported species can be found in those islands and on any continent other than South America as well as Central America. After you read this page, and please finish since you may learn something important about how to buy Anthurium species, read this page: http://www.alsgh.com/blog/ If you haven't figured it out already, Anthurium seeds are not easy to find! This article attempts to explain why.

Please understand, the ExoticRainforest is a private botanical garden, it is not a retail nursery. We do not sell Anthurium seed or specimens. We offer information regarding tropical species but we don't offer plants for sale. At least a portion of the information you are looking to find, including how to find Anthurium, is found within this text.

Many people want to buy a handful of seeds for just a dollar or two. Some offer substantially more, but one naturalist in South America told me that no price was worth the effort to go out and collect the seeds! I've received requests for up to 10,000 seeds at one time! That number would be virtually impossible to find in North America. The life expectancy (viability) of Anthurium seed is short. If they die in transit the purchaser is going to want their money back! That alone makes the effort not worthwhile. If not packed perfectly, they will likely produce nothing in only a few weeks. I'm not sure if the people who make these kinds of l offers truly understand how short the seed viability actually is, as well as how long, and how difficult, it is to grow, clean and collect a small bag of seeds.

Even though I grow many rare Anthurium species, and do sometimes grow seeds, those seeds are not readily available. And if they were, the seeds of the rarer species are valuable! Some, very valuable. Most growers who manage to produce and harvest seed just don't wish to sell them. And there is a very good reason.

If a grower floods the market with too many Anthurium plants he/she can easily destroy the market. This has been proven over and over again with species such as Anthurium veitchii. Just a few years ago a small specimen of that species could demand a price of $100.00. Today, most growers can't sell that species for prices as low as $5.00 or $6.00! And there are other species that have suffered the same fate. Although beautiful, it makes a less-than-perfect house plant. An Anthurium grower in the United States who controls their market can easily demand $20 to $100 for a nice small Anthurium specimen depending on the rarity of the species. If one is lucky enough to produce seeds they would rarely be willing to sell them when they can grow a few of the plants themselves and then sell those plants in a few years at a substantially higher price. When I purchased my first Anthurium regale I paid $130 for a small specimen. Today you can buy sometimes buy one for $30. The more plants that are offered, the lower the price. Were anyone to obtain 10,000 seeds of a rare species the price of that specimen would drop to a very low price. It is called "price and demand". Just ask the growers in Indonesia who now find the prices in their country dropping. Too many plants result in much lower prices.

The current motivation in SE Asia appears to be the magnificent size of some Anthurium specimens. Anthurium schlechtendalii (photo above right) can grow to be immense. These are known as "birds nest" forms and are members of Anthurium Section Pachyneurium. But those specimens take a lot of space to grow! In Florida, an acre of good land can cost $1,000,000 or more not counting building structures. A grower with only four or five acres can invest a large amount of money. Those who grow these plants have made substantial investments in their businesses and do not wish to destroy that investment by having the price of the product drop to near zero. There are growers in Florida that often do grow Anthurium for either retail or wholesale purposes, but even they often control the number of specimens they will grow.

I suspect the real reason so many growers, especially in SE Asia, want to buy large quantities of seed is they think they can get rich quick! During the summer of 2007 they saw common plants sell on eBay for upwards of $500 each and wanted to cash in. But they do so without realizing they are affecting the law of "price and demand". And on eBay, the damand has dropped and so have the prices! They hope to sell the plants at a substantial profit and hope growers in the United States will sell the seeds for a low price. But if 10,000 specimens of a previously rare plant suddenly hit the market the price would plummet from perhaps $100 per plant to a few dollars per plant! And that quickly destroys the market.

After I declined a recent offer one Indonesian grower then sent back an email saying he could demand up to $100,000 for a single plant. Perhaps. But if you have 10,000 of those plants to sell, how much can you ask for a specimen? He was also hoping someone would sell him the often difficult to obtain seeds for just a few cents each. There are growers in some areas of the United States that do harvest seeds. But I promise, it is highly unlikely they will even answer an email from anyone wishing to buy those seeds. They prefer to grow just enough of them to keep the market healthy and then sell the plants.

Despite what many appear to believe, growers in the United States do not have yards filled with adult Anthurium specimens! The seeds are often quite rare. Most people do not realize the life cycle of an Anthurium species is complicated. Anthurium species possess one of nature's most interesting forms of plant reproduction. First the plant has to produce an inflorescence. That inflorescence is composed of many parts, but the principal ones are the spathe and spadix and may take months to develop. The spathe looks like a "flower" to many. It is not! The spathe is simply a specially adapted leaf. At the center of the spathe is an elongated portion known as the spadix. The true flowers, both male and female, form on the spadix, but are extremely small. That too can take months.

Species often require a natural insect pollinator to pollinate the spadix. And in most cases, that insect is "assigned" and does not live in North America. When ready to reproduce, the plant emits a "perfume" known as a pheromone that one particular species of male insect which lives where it grows naturally can detect. The spadix can be pollinated by humans using a very light camel hair brush, but it is difficult to time perfectly and requires expertise. And in most cases, you can't just remove the pollen from the spadix and apply it to the female flowers of the same spadix. You must collect and freeze the pollen when it is produced and save it in a special freezer container until the next time the plant produces a spathe and spadix. Only then can you apply it, and even that is difficult. The total time can easily be well over one year. Why? Read this page: More information on Anthurium species? Click this link.

The flowers of Anthurium species are produced along the spadix at the center of the inflorescence and are very tiny. You need a very good magnifying tool to even see them. Some species allow the male and female flowers to grow together up and down the length of the spadix but many of the rarer species do not. The female and male flowers are intentionally divided by a sterile zone to prevent self pollination. Nature is very clever! The female flowers normally become "receptive" first and that can be detected only when the spadix begins to produce pheromones (scent, or perfume) and a light liquid. Frequently you can smell the perfume several feet away. But you must be observant! And if you miss it, your opportunity has passed for perhaps another year.

If an insect that is appropriate for that species is present, and picks up pollen from a separate plant, the female flowers may then be pollinated. BUT, the male flowers often do not begin to produce pollen until well after the female flowers are spent. So unless you have already collected pollen, and stored it in a freezer under special conditions, there is none available for you to use to pollinate the plant. Only a few collectors will have two or more plants of the same species so it is highly unlikely, even if you do have multiple specimens, to have both come into fertility at precisely the right time when one is producing male flowers and the other is producing female flowers. It almost never happens in a collection.

The pollen is also extremely fine and difficult to collect correctly. It must be totally free of moisture and stored in a frozen sealed tube until you are ready to use it. Few serious collectors will take the time to collect it and wait 7 months or more for another spadix to develop, then apply. And if they do, it is highly unlikely they will sell those seeds for a fraction of their worth.

Once pollinated, the spadix will produce berries in approximately the next three months and those berries contain the seeds, normally two seeds per berry. As a result, seeds are rare in a collector's growing situation! Especially in the rarer species that most of the folks in Indonesia and southeast Asia are trying to buy! There are a few species that will self pollinate, but only a few. In the genus Anthurium there are some species which produce ripe fruit with viable seed without pollination. This phenomenon is known to a botanist as the species being apomictic.

The lists I sometimes receive are worth multiple thousands of dollars and the prospective buyer is offering just a few dollars. I've had many requests for 1000 or more seeds of a single species at one time! But the offer was for $20 or $30 dollars! I often wonder if those people have even actually calculated the value of their request? Well, perhaps they have! And they know those 1000 seeds could easily be worth $20,000 or more when the plants are grown.

If you are interested in the detailed daily analysis of the growth of an Anthurium spathe and spadix with daily photos and narration by noted Anthurium experts Dr. Tom Croat of the Missouri Botanical Garden, Julius Boos, LariAnn Garner and others, go here: Anthurium regale spathe and spadix. There are close to 80 days of photographs.

Although I admire all of the collectors in that part of the world who are trying to acquire Anthurium seeds, they are not readily available and far more valuable than most people realize. I can tell you for certain, the talk on many aroid discussion boards and at conferences in the United States is most wish the email requests would simply stop. Most growers don't want o take the time to explain why the seeds are difficult to acquire and worth far more than most collectors are willing to offer. Please note: If you send me an email asking for seed, or plants, I'll refer you directly to this page.

I collect many species and know of only a single collector who will sometimes sell seeds. And right now, he has none to sell I sometimes have collectors from Europe (who are more inclined to take the time to learn how to pollinate by hand and spend the months required to do it) send me seeds of unusual species. But even that is rare. If you are seeking Anthurium seeds, I'd suggest you spend your efforts in Europe looking for those seeds. It seems to be a more common "hobby" to try to produce Anthurium seeds over there. Besides, most American commercial growers value the time to pollinate, grow, and harvest the seeds far more than most people are willing to pay.

There is now a plant seller in Bangkok, Thailand who has some Anthurium to sell. I suggest you try locating that seller on the internet. The best alternative for folks from Indonesia and SE Asia is to simply buy the plants from a company in Ecuador. That company is licensed to ship plants legally almost anywhere in the world. And the rarest forms of Anthurium come from Ecuador. You can find their website on the internet. Once you buy the plant, in four or five years you can grow your own seeds and sell them for whatever price you think they are worth. When you receive the plants they will be minus all leaves for safety reasons, but they will grow new leaves much faster than you can grow an adult Anthurium from a seed. That can take many years.

Sorry, we don't sell Anthurium seeds and only a very few plants!
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