Rareplant seed shop

[Maddiesicky]

I keep seeing this seed shop called rare plant website rareplant.me and i see them everywhere! They have some crazy seeds but a lot of them are really rare and they have a huge veriety and I just wonder if they are what they advertise them to be. They have good reviews regarding shipping etc but nobody ever says anything about the actual seeds. Have any of you bought from them? Are the seeds the actual species they claim to be? Seems too good to be true.

[Jangaudi]

ah yes, it's that Serbian dealer. Wanted to order from them in the past, but I think they are rather expensive. Most of what they have can be got for a quarter of the price from other dealers

[Russell99]

I keep seeing this seed shop called rare plant website rareplant.me and i see them everywhere! They have some crazy seeds but a lot of them are really rare and they have a huge veriety and I just wonder if they are what they advertise them to be. They have good reviews regarding shipping etc but nobody ever says anything about the actual seeds. Have any of you bought from them? Are the seeds the actual species they claim to be? Seems too good to be true.

When you see the word "rare" tagged with a product. Run....
1. They are sold at a higher price ( eg:rare echinocactus grusonii seeds, using the word rare they can sell their products at a higher price, they're chasing your wallet)

[Aiko]

These prices are ridiculous. One would assume with online shopping you know your customers can easily look at other places too to see what they have to offer and for what prices.

[DaveW]

Agree with Russel and Aiko, I can see nothing rare, at least as seed and the prices are high.

Remember unlike plants, with CITES most seed crosses international borders with no trouble, therefore you can order from dealers around the world and probably much cheaper. With the advent of PayPal, which most of them take, there is no problem in changing currencies. Also most dealers understand English emails.

Cactus Mall lists clickable links to many seed dealers and you can read their seed lists online or download them. However there are now a few dead links in there yet to be removed.

http://www.cactus-mall.com/seeds.html

Also if you are after any particular seeds and you ask on the Forum somebody may know a dealer that has them. Some "Rare" plants are not so rare as seeds but take quite a time to raise from seed which is why they are rare as plants. But others are rare in nurserymen's plant lists because they have simply gone out of fashion. Therefore if they don't sell well they don't bother to raise them though are often available as seed. Examples are Gymnocalycium horstii, the type form with a white flower which is not as saleable as Gymnocalycium horstii ssp bueneckeri with the pink flower. In fact the latter has become so confused with the G. horstii type that if you Google for G. horstii there is seldom a white flower in sight, since you just get the pink flowered ssp buneckeri as horstii.

Notocactus uebelmannianus is another case. There were three "Gymnocalycioide" Notocacti originally introduced and only N. uebelmannianus (= Parodia werneri) had the purple flower. The others had the "standard" Notocactus yellow ones, therefore not as saleable for nurserymen so now much harder to find as plants and only usually available as seeds. Even Notocactus uebelmannianus has a yellow flowered subspecies Notocactus uebelmannianus ssp flaviflorus, but that too is seldom seen now. Plants go in fashions and dealers cater for fashion, therefore after their initial introduction many plants later are usually only available as seed.

[esp_imaging]

They have some crazy seeds but a lot of them are really rare and they have a huge variety

There don't seem to be that many that are really rare! Although they don't have attractive screens full of lots of pretty pictures, may of the "list of plants " sellers have far more species on offer.
For example, try succseed or ADBLPS or cactus-nursery.eu for a far wider range of cacti, and koehres for a far wider range of cacti and succulents. All at vastly lower prices.