Its a big world and everybody on it has a different viewpoint - all of them valid. When I take a deep view of the issue it has parallels to other nature/environmental conflicts and the ethics of ownership of art and artifacts. When I was younger I collected a lot in the wild, both plants and animals. Over time my poor track record for success calmed down my wish to grow everything. Now I only collect something that I really think I can grow. I prefer to take cuttings and whereas in the past I would take an obscene amount of cuttings, now I only take a few (you could call this pruning!). I try not to tell other people what they should do or not do, because I believe they will eventually slow down on the collecting. It is rare for a person to be a rabid collector for years on years. Another aspect of it to consider - the only people that will care enough to step in and do the work involved with saving an endagered species of plant will be gardeners. Those gardeners will have to gain those skills somewhere. When disaster is looming, it will be a gardener that saves the rare plants in his/her neighborhood - other people will be busy saving something else. Way back when I worked at the zoo I used to work in the bird department taking care of a large walk through aviary filled with South American birds. One day while out at lunch with some ex-staff I ran across my old highschool biology teacher who told me about her teenage son's pet parrot that he had recieved from the zoo. Immediately my group figured out that the kid had stolen the parrot but I kept my cool and let her tell me the false story he had told her. Later they were furious that I did nothing or said nothing to her but in my mind that parrot was in a much better place being cared for by this kid. Everyone thinks that because its the "zoo" that all the animals are expertly cared for but this was an orphaned bird that lived in isolation and neglect in windowless shed for years before someone stepped forward and suggested we re-introduce it to the parent flock. By then it was heavily imprinted on people and would fly up to anyone walking through the aviary. The flock treated it poorly, it was never going to fit in. The zoo didn't have the time to take adequate care of it. Allowing it to be kept by the teenager was actually better for the bird - even though the kid was a thief. So it all depends on how you want to look at it.

WC8: 4 days does seem brief, maybe you jostled some pollen when you moved the plant---that will cause the plant to lose a flower in a heartbeat as for details a female pileatum flower popped up and I wanted to improve the flower quality and I took a shot----both of the plants had good red color but the flower display was what I was trying to affect---one had short compact flowers (the pileatum) and the others flower stem was longer but too open in flower display so I crossed them, gave the seed pod to jem---and looking at your results it came out pretty good this is the pollen parent this is the female parent

I checked that site and found many many varieties that I had personally introduced, so checked them first,and much wrong information.Which extends to other varieties as well. Here's the description there for Ste Pierre; (Really nice red round but slightly lobed slicer, 4 to 6 oz. fruit. Good CSA variety, ships well. The color and full flavor make it a good mid to late season market tomato. From Geza Korbely, Hungary on St. Pierre Island. Tags: Red, Season Mid, Medium, Round.) I know Geza very well and yes he lives in Hungary and the description was poorly written b'c it should have said he GOT it from the Island of Ste Pierre. And the island of te Pierre is in France, not Hungary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_Island There is no Ste Pierre Island in Hungary. Geza is a very very active seed trader and participates at many many message sites looking for trades. And has very very long lists of tomatoes that he offers in trade. I'm no tsure why got his seeds from France, maybe one of his contacts there,maybe b'c he too knew that the variety originated in France since seeds for Ste. Pierre are available at many seed sites outside of the US as well as many here in the US: http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/St._Pierre#tab=Seed_Availability Above is the same link I gave above to Tania's page for it but this time I linked to seed availability so you could see the many many seed vendors who list it. I do hope that clarifies this for you and that you can be more comfortable with this variety actually originating in France. ( smile) Carolyn

Last weekend we were in Northern California for my husband Mark's 45th high school reunion. After having dinner at a trendy sushi restaurant Friday night with friends and family, just as we were settling up the bill, a complete stranger bounces up to our table and asks ... "Anyone here named Mark?" We figured the guy worked at the restaurant and was returning our credit card but no, he told us he was on a Photo Scavenger Hunt for his brother's birthday party. One of the items on the list was to find and photograph someone named Mark (the brother's name). So, the guy took a photo of my husband and the name part of his driver's license. And then he was off finding more items on the list. We all had a good laugh about it. Jodi-