Clarification: Unnumbered Papillilaminum Clones

Hey folks!

This post is for anyone interested in the conversation around "unnumbered clones" in the plant community, and how to use this term properly when trading & collecting plants (namely, aroids). 

The entry I'm about to post below IS NOT MY OWN.

I am copy/pasting a post by Grant Abadal in the Anthurium Addicts Facebook group for anyone who is not a member and who, for reasons of their own, don't want to join the group in order to read the original post. 

I think there is a lot of confusion in the plant community about numbered clones, especially with popular species of plant such as papillilaminum, carlablackiae, and kunayalense, and sharing this information only serves to better educate us all and improve the hobby for everyone.

You can read the original post here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/anthuriumaddicts/permalink/1023359142300387

 

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Unnumbered pap clone “RA A”. Photos belong to Grant Abadal.

Some clarification on what an “unnumbered clone” is and when it’s appropriate to use this designation.  This has been a big topic of discussion lately and it’s clear that a lot of people have no idea what this terminology actually means or implies and it’s causing a lot of confusion in the community and I think setting people up to be taken advantage of.

The whole “unnumbered” designation stems from the RA clones (Rory).  As most people know he has numbered wild clones of most of the desirable species (RA1, RA2,…etc).  Before the numbering system became a huge part of the focus of the anthurium craze he sold a number of clones to individuals and they were not numbered into his RA numbering system.  Whether or not that was because he hadn’t made the numbering system or because these were plants that didn’t make his cut I don’t know.  The first time I became aware of this was with several pap clones for example the one now referred to as “RA A” (this name was given by the community for organization purposes not RA himself).  There also appear to be some finite number of other species unnumbered clones such as Carla and kuna etc in private collections from collectors that were around pretty early on (3 years plus).  Scott’s OG clones fall into this category as well.

I think some of the confusion we’ve been having lately is that in the beginning a lot of Carlas and other plants were sold as seedlings and the tag would just say “Carla” or “BVEP” with the parent cross names/numbers (ie carla 5 x 10) not being provided.  It wasn’t until later that precise cross information started being provided as it became clear that it was important to collectors.  It seems like a lot of people are going back and looking at their plants and seeing that there’s no cross numbers on the tags and they’re taking a huge leap and saying “oh this must be unnumbered” which is inaccurate in most cases as they’re can’t be anywhere near the number of unnumbered clones that have seemingly popped up out of nowhere over the past few months.  If you didn’t buy your plant as a wild clone or don’t know the convention should be to assume it’s not, not that it is, as there are FAR MORE random seedlings in circulation than unnumbered wild clones.  

I’m not bashing seed grown plants at all but we all know that implying something is a wild plant attaches a certain value to said plant in this community.  Additionally for many people in the community including myself precise record keeping and lineages are important so it’s not good practice to make assumptions or leaps with the lineage of plants because that will carry forward with that plant into other collections 

Anyway I’ll stop here and leave a little tldr and of course welcome discussion.

TLDR:

• “Unnumbered clone” means you bought an entire plant or offset of a wild clone from Scott/rory that had no number.  If you didn’t buy the plant as a clone or don’t know then it’s probably not and it’s best not to call it that.
• If you bought a seedling from Scott/rory that didn’t have a cross designation don’t call it “unnumbered Carla”.  Just say seed grown RA carla unknown cross or something similar. Saying “unnumbered” implies to most people that your plant is a wild clone.  Random seedlings were never given number designations so there’s no reason to say unnumbered.
• If you have a wild clone from another source (not Rory) don’t call it an unnumbered clone either.  “Unnumbered clone” is a direct reference to Rory’s numbering system so there’s no reason a wild clone from another source would have an Ra number.  Call it a wild clone and name the source (if you can 😅)

 

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