Tamang again

[Ellen Hornig]

But Paul, aren't you perhaps being *too* kind about mixups from Indian
suppliers?  I think a lot of us have had some experience with these by now
- the worst (certainly most flagrant) being the supplying of sauromatums
in place of arisaemas (this happened to me indirectly when a former
correspondent was reselling imported tubers - I don't think he's around
anymore -?).

What you write about Tamang still raises two questions for me:  first,
doesn't a responsible dealer verify his sources; and second, doesn't a
responsible dealer make good on his mixups?  I have no doubt, after all,
that if you found yourself selling something that wasn't properly ID'd,
you'd want to remedy the mistake immediately (and judging from how
carefully you grow everything on, this wouldn't happen in the first
place).  So the final question becomes: what has been Tamang's response to
complaints about misidentification?

And I do hope we aren't all sitting here and saying "poor little
Third-Worlders, we mustn't expect too much of them."  After all, that's
where the book on Himalayan arisaemas was written.  If buyers weren't so
tolerant of mislabeled shipments, the problem might diminish.

Lastly, I'd be curious to hear from other list members what they think the
retailer's responsibility is when they find they've distributed wrongly
identified material.  As I write, several purported A. griffithii from a
west-coast supplier are unfurling into intermediums in my shadehouse...not
what the doctor ordered......

Ellen