At the risk of preaching to the choir, I'll put in my wholehearted
agreement as well!
One of the really nice things about cp collecting is the circulation
of plant material through trading (or selling for nominal costs),
be it through the ICPS seedbank or through contacts with fellow growers
(ie. through this group). Unlike the collecting of stamps, or coins,
or even other living things like birds or cacti, cp are comparatively
very easy to propagate. If you grow them well, you'll probably have
more than you need on your hands. But they don't become weeds because
cp have that all-so-tantalizing ability to die very suddenly without
any forewarning :-) This is just another good reason to "spread the
wealth" through trading, and not be proprietary about one's specimens.
most cp mature very rapidly (say I, as a cactus collector :-)
so a nice specimen is really a sign of good cultivation, not just a
sign of a big ancient plant probably hoisted from the wild back in
the 1960's (as so many of today's prize specimen cacti were).
Most importantly, a good web of collectors all exchanging propagules
cuts down on the drive to exploit wild plants. Why pay big bucks for a
Venus Flytrap of dubious origin? I think there will always be someone
on the list willing to trade, sell, or give away a few extra VFTs!
Michael