There is a hybrid of Caladium called Sorcerer, I don't know what it looks like, but I think that photo looks like a caladium too. That should be unethical.

You are so right, Bihai, that is unethical, that seller should be ashamed of him/herself.

Yep, that's a Caladium, all right. What was that quote from P. T. Barnum about a sucker every minute?

My neighbor up the street had a few very much like that one growing in a pot outside this past summer. I've got some even more exotic that that, but they are still Caladiums!

LariAnn Garner
Aroidia Research

Here is a link that might be useful: Aroidia Research

I sent a message through Ebay to the seller. I asked for a reference to the Black Dragon elephant ear and the red elephant ear. I only received a reply accusing me of spam. I then resent my request stating I thought it was colocasia 'black magic' and that it was not rare or exotic. I was threatened with a law suit for harassment.
I tried reporting it to ebay but I did not get a message saying it had been accepted as I usually do.
This ebayer has sent very threating emails and even changed my email and inserted bad language into it. They said they sent that to ebay to have me banned.
I'm shaking in my pants. LOL. All ebay has to do is check the time frame and realize my original did not say those things.
If anyone would care to read the emails I will send them to you.
In the meantime watch out for new and exotic elephant ears that you can not find a reference for.

Hello! There is indeed a red Elephant's Ear, but it is really a red-stemmed E.E. The leaves are green, but the stems are red, very deep red. I have 1 plant that I bought it on E-bay and it really has red stems, but the leaves, are green.They are really beautiful.

But this one in that sale is just a Caladium. Though we should not forget that in some places all the arums like Caladiums, Alocasias, Colocasias and Xanthosomas are called commonly "Elephant's Ear". I am not in agree with this saller attitude, but the mess with the common name can happen.

Have a warm evening,
Jorge Joel...
Emilia's Garden

Cactus freak, don't worry about it.
eBay isn't going to do anything to you, and as long as you still have copies of your original emails showing them to be pristine and profanity free, I think eBay will be able to figure out what's going on. They can figure out by timing and stuff the sequence and order things were sent and should be able to tell if he illegally altered your mail.

I had a similar situation happen to me a few years ago. I bought 3 orchids from a vendor on eBay. They were advertized as "Blooming size Mokara orchids". I was not the only one, 2 other people who are long term regulars over on the Orchid Forum also bought this particular trio of plants.

When the plants arrived, they were healthy, but they were simply nice-sized top cuttings of Mokara, not well established blooming sized plants. I don't know if you grow vandaceous orchids, but when you take a topcutting off of a large plant like a Mokara, you are supposed to be certain you get at least 3 chongo healthy roots. None of my cuttings had 3 roots, they had one or 2. These plants were, IMO, at least 2 years from blooming.

I made a passing reference to these Mokara in a note I posted on the orchid forum, and the other 2 people who had bought them contacted me privately by personal email, off forum. We compared notes on our purchases and all came to the agreement that we felt we had been deceived, no one had gotten "large blooming sized Mokaras" but all had gotten top cuttings.

I emailed the seller and said that I thought he had been deceptive in his advertizing on eBay and his basic response was to give me s*it and say I didn't know anything about growing vandaceous orchids and quote the fact that he had perfect feedback and no one else had ever been dissatisfied before etc. He said he imported the best plants from the best Thai growers and his plants were the best and so on and on and on. I warned him that I planned to give him a neutral feedback based on the fact that he had sent poorly taken top cuttings and not large blooming sized plants as advertized and also based on the fact that his communication skills were basically nonexistant.
He made some threats to me advising me against doing that.

Well, about this time, the other 2 people who had bought the Mokaras started to email him and basically say the same thing, they were dissatisfied for exactly the same reason I was.

In the meantime, I did leave him a NEUTRAL (NOT NEGATIVE) feedback, and shortly thereafter, so did the 2 other people.

He went ballistic on ME. He started sending me personal emails threatening me with personal libel suits, said he was banning me from all his future auctions, accused me of putting the other 2 people up to giving him neutral feedback (when actually they made those decisions on their own with no prompting from me), said he would get me kicked off eBay, etc.

I saved all the emails and forwarded them all to eBay. He was making a lot of threats, including one that he would "fly to Florida and kick my as*..." so I also took copies of the emails to my lawyer (who happened to be a personal friend and neighbor as well) and she emailed him "professionally" and told him in no certain terms he better cease and desist. She followed up that email with a written letter on her firm's stationary. She also emailed eBay and gave them an earful about his threats.

eBay never dealt with me directly, but I noted thereafter that this particular seller was not in eBay any more. Unless he changed his name and came back as someone else.

I think you have done the right thing in bringing him to their attention. If I were you I would forward all the threats he has made to them and request that they investigate him.

Sorry to hear you went through all that. Sounds like a psycho personality--out of touch with the norm. Via eBay, I once sent a keyboard to someone and got a bounced check. Needless to say, his bank started an investigation and he got put in prison. Never got my money back. Sorry, off-topic a bit, but caution is a good thing.

On eBay, one also has to watch for plants pawned off as "rare" that are bought at the local nursery. Although, that will probably apply to less-knowledgeable collectors more.

i found out that the ebay seller on that auction is actually TYTY .i had a funny feeling that i had heard this story before when i read your post.soo i went to the auction,they have a web link to myplantgarden,went to that site at 1st i as thinking as i moved around the site that things were on the up & up ,but then i got to the fountian grasses & one of the photo's looked like the same person that is in some of the TYTY photos,sure enuff i went back to the TYTY site & they have the same exact photo & description on both sites .a ebay seller can use any item location they want so don't be misled by the address they used on the auction .i really suggest that you contact ebay with all of your emails & file a formal complaint.ANY ebay seller that has a PRIVATE feedback score is to be advoided as they have a reason that they went private & it's always bad

Here is a link that might be useful: myplantgarden/new tyty website

Obviously that is a caladium.

AgaveKid,
How do you know it is TyTy? There is a picture on that site for a Asclepiadaceae bushman's pipe. The bushman's pipe photo is from another nursery in Florida, which the forum posting software would not let me mention. It gave me a spam alert. If you do this web search they are like the second listing. Apparently they must be into shady dealing also if they are banded for spamming gardenweb. Their initials are T T just like TyTy.

it's too much of simularty & tyty is well know that they try to spam anyone who bad mouths them ,they have used many different addresses just to give themselves a + feed back in the garden watchdog site .there are just to many photo's that are the same on the two sites .if i were a site that used some elses photos i would be shut down right off the bat . but that is how they try to protect thier site by spamming everyone & anyone one complains . it's been proven that they have used many different isp & email addresses to state that they are good sellers .just cause a site says it's from fl or al don't mean that where they are from ,,it's just M O H that;s what is going on ,if u feel the other wise plz order from them & prove me wrong

I have no opinion on who they are. I just noticed that they were using photos from T__ Trop____. So I am thinking either they steal their pictures or they are all three related.

It just really irritates me that they would try to get someone to pay $9.95 plus over $8 shipping for something I can go to Home Depot and buy for 79 cents-$1.00.

As an eBay seller myself, I think this hurts the credibility of all of us who sell on eBay, and makes people afraid of getting ripped off.

I had a problem with a seller who wasn't TyTy and wasn't affiliated with them(that I know of), but showed up here on GardenWeb. Got himself booted in something like 5 days, spammed the forums, and when I posted to one of his postings this person sent me a threatening email. He had been selling on eBay and was threatening on there when I asked why he had sent cuttings instead of bulbs. He was from Florida too.
I keep watch on eBay, since its possible to find so many neat and exotic things, too bad that some people will stoop so low to rip everyone off.

I found this site that has "Red Leaf Elephant Ears."

Is this what you are talking about?

Here is a link that might be useful: Aaron's Nursery

I'm not sure I see the problem aside from using the common name "elephant ear" a bit liberally but this isn't a taxonomic classification, and doesn't refer to one specific plant. The term is usually used for certain kinds of Alocasia, Colocasia, and Xanthosoma, but there's definitely some gray area--how about Remusatia, which used to be classified as Colocasia? And Colocasia esculenta was once classified as Caladium esculentum (and is still sometimes found under this old name).

When they put the name "Colocasia" on this plant, get back to me and I promise to throw a fit.

It just seems like misdirection to me, Johnnieb,, which to me is a little dishonest, to be honest.
I mean, people who really collect different varieties of the same plant, while they may not be EXPERTS in a certain plant, would probably rush to buy a red COLOCASIA or a red ALOCASIA or a red XANTHOSOMA, because this would be something new, probably truly RARE, and worth the high price tag.

But, on the other hand, the same "collector", while not necessarily an "expert", would NOT rush to buy a red CALADIUM for the same price because, lets face it, they are as common as the dirt they are grown in.

The fact that this seller did not label this plant with ANY taxonomic classification to assist people in knowing what they are about to spend a relatively large amount of money on, other than the common "catch all" description of ELEPHANT EAR, seems patently UNFAIR to potential buyers.

And as to the plants advertized on the website which Lovehiken has provided the link to, why would this place have a red ELEPHANT EAR which certainly looks a whole lot like the caladiums pictured next to it, and not also call it a caladium?

In taking another look at the site Lovehiken provided the link to, why didn't they give the correct names for the other plants they have there? As a "professional" nursery, they should be more careful in their labeling, especially at THOSE prices.

I mean, really, why call something a "Black leaf elephant ear" and not label it with its correct name, Colocasia escuelenta "Black Magic"?

And the "Giant Green Elephant Ears"...? The photo seems to be more interested in showing the lady in the foreground, not the plants way off in the background. Are they Xanthosoma saggitifolia? ALocasia macrorhizza? Colocasia gigantea? I would want to know for that amount of money, wouldn't you?

And the "Elephant ear variable"? Well, I know that is Colocasia affinnis "Dwarf Jenningsii", because I have grown it for many years, and also know it DOESN'T have a "Kaliedoscope of colors" as they have described it...it has BLACK and GREEN, and very much resembles a miniature Colocasia escuelenta "Imperial Taro" aka "Illustris". And while it IS somewhat uncommon, if I was going to spend that much on it, I'd want the correct name.

This nursery is not marketing to specialists or collectors, and not even to the gardening public, it's marketing to the GENERAL public. As such I expect a certain amount of marketing hype and "rare" and "exotic" are just marketing terms. I do see plenty of misinformation coming from such companies--those marketing to the general public frequently don't provide the botanical names of their plants, although I would never order from such a company--but it's hard to tell if it's anything truly underhanded or just simple ignorance on their parts. And let's face it, much of the general public doesn't really want or care about the botanical names, they just want their snapdragons and geraniums. Think about various plants called "foxglove" in the trade, like Ceratotheca and Rehmannia. Is it unethical to call those things "South African foxglove" and "Chinese foxglove" when they are not Digitalis? Mass-marketers will ALWAYS go with a more familiar name, even if it's not entirely accurate. "Elephant Ear" sounds more glamorous, more familiar, and more user-friendly than "Caladium".

That's precisely why I see websites like Gardenweb and Garden Watchdog as being so valuable: they provide a way for us to educate ourselves and each other, and to help us steer clear of the unethical businesses, and provide information to those who are a little less horticulturally literate.

If this is really a shady or unethical nursery, the buyer feedback on Ebay will eventually catch up with them. But so far their customers seem pleased, and for better or for worse in business, that's the bottom line.

BTW is that black-leafed elephant ear really 'Black Magic'? Who knows. I would be VERY cautious about identifying any unlabeled plant with a cultivar name (and especially from a photo only). This name has been applied to at least a couple of different dark-leafed clones in cultivation; plants I got as 'Black Magic' from two different sources turned out to be what Plant Delights is calling 'Black Runner'. A couple of other names are being thrown around and who knows how many dark-leafed cultivars there really are, and what the proper names for each of them are.

Is Aaron's nursery the same as TY TY?

Yes, it is. If you look at the site map for Ty Ty and look at canna and amaryillis it will have the same pictures as Aaron's nursery.
They used to have different names for the nursery for each plant division. EX. Aaron's Fruit Farm. I didn't take time to look and see if they still do.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ty Ty/Aarons

there are more sites than that.. all with different names & addresses .the dead give away is that u will see the same photos &/or the same people in the photos on the different sites.I'll bet that they are all on the same internet server they will in the end attract the attention of the feds when enuff people complain .cause it is called wire fraud over state lines

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but in the current issue of Garden Design magazine they give "elephant's ear" as the common name of Caladium bicolor.

Just one more reason why we should encourage the use of botanical names.