@sunkissed, I started collecting plants over 30 years ago. Back then it was very easy to trade with others. A big priority mail box was $3.00, and people were really into mail trading. There were more private nurseries that carried a bigger variety of more unusual plants that didn't cost a fortune, more mail order places ditto. And there were a lot of organized plant trades in those days. People would bring some really interesting things along with the 'usual' stuff. Also, plants weren't so darn EXPENSIVE. I can remember what I paid for some of my plants, and I see them for sale now, sometimes from the same vendor, and they are double or even triple the cost. I was trading and networking back at the time that people I knew actually knew as friends some of the folks who were actually going to other countries and collecting new species and hybrids of plants and bringing them back both for scientific purposes and for the purpose of bringing new plants to market (usually by getting them into tissue culture and thus mass producing them). I think nowadays things are just different, its harder to collect unusual and neat things for a number of reasons....the advent of the Big Box Store nurseries, the unfeasibility of those old intrepid explorers to go trekking out in the jungle in Malaysia and Borneo anymore, (some of those guys weren't young and have died I am sure and no one took their place) habitat loss worldwide for plants and animals, the exploding cost of postage, the loss of the small specialty growers who couldn't make a living....I collected stuff that I can;t even find advertised for sale on the web anywhere now, of if it is its ALWAYS 'out of stock'. Or if you do find it, you can't afford it. I will say that I got both of these Brownea trees as trades from a lady in the Homestead area I used to trade with a lot back in the day. She raised them both from seed. To find one now for sale, if you find them, they can cost between $50-150 for a seedling. We used to drive down and go to the Fairchild Gardens plant sales almost every year. It was $5 to get in and all the really cool places with unusual stuff were there...Tropiflora, Gardinos, Tom Wood (in person wearing his pith helmet), Excelsa Gardens, Crowleys...I can't remember them all. There were dedicated reps for palms, crotons, plumeria, ginger, hoyas, orchids you name it. Tropiflora would set up tables with $5 bromeliad offsets. Then the gardens decided they needed to make $$ and upped the entrance fee to $20 for the sale. Per PERSON. Even kids. It went from costing the friend I used to go with $20 for her family of 4 to $80. Many people who had attended for years stopped going. Key vendors dropped out. I haven't been in years. I'm glad I was able to collect stuff when I did. I don't think I could do it now.
It is much harder to collect rare plants now. When I started, I had friends who often went to Mexico or other foreign countries to collect plants. Now the rules make that nearly impossible.
