FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Im trying to find info online and finding it hard to get a answer. basically ive always been told that you only need a permit for plants and seed was ok, though the years I've bought lots of seed from the US without any problems, but today someone on a CP community on face book, when i asked to buy some seed from him said it was illegally, and ive been buying seed illegally?¿ Is this true or is it basically BS and he has no clue what hes talking about?

You need to find the legality of imports on your end. Your laws certainly do not apply to a sender in the US but it may be "illegal" for you to receive them. In the US you do need permits to import seeds but it's often done without them.

we have not issues on our end, the guy on fb was saying it was illegal to send them from the US, and basically I'vs been buying illegally.

If you have done your research on government web sites and it's legal for you to receive them, buy away.

I'm not a legal expert but I have personally dealt with non-CP related phytosanitary inspections, sending/receiving wood and plant material for 15 years. Some countries required a phytosanitary to receive the products and others did not. A phytosanitary was not required to send the shipments but if the destination country required it, it as aquired. We are talking about 40'-53' shipping containers full, not a package of seeds that slip through customs. I would send the product and often travel to the destination country to receive it.

With legal issues is always best to verify for yourself. Just because others are doing something and tell you it's fine does not mean it is.

I very rarely ship seeds overseas just because of the hassle of figuring cost and such. Paypal is very much bias against sellers and tracking is not always available for a reasonable price.

I've personally sent seeds to Canada. I had to fill out an export paper on what the envelope contained. Pay an extra dollar, and about a week later the person received their seeds.

I've also received seeds from Canada, and I'm expecting some from Europe maybe this week. The cost on the Canadian seeds was like 4 for shipping, and the European seeds shipping was like 9 bucks.

I've also talked to my local post office about sending to Europe recently and he said it was pretty much the same as sending them to Canada. Fill out the paper, and pay the postage.

Pm me your address, I'll send you some since I enjoy proving people wrong.

To be honest he probably just doesn't want to take the 5 minutes to fill out the paperwork.

Best of luck!

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The other factor for many people, including myself, is we just don't want to spend time researching other countries import laws to make sure it's ok for you to receive them. I don't think it's worth trying to convince a seller it's actually legal for them to send you the seeds. You can probably find them in the EU anyways.

Generally people put the legal responsibility on the buyer, since it would be ridiculous to expect the seller to research the import laws of every potential country they could ship to. It is certainly not illegal for someone here in the US to ship seeds to you under US law, it just depends on your country's laws.

Personally I find the US import laws a bit ridiculous - You can import up to 12 plants (non-CITES) with no permit, the shipper just has to provide a phytosanitary certificate. If you want to import seeds, however, you need a (free) permit (but no phyto) and requires the seller to do a bunch of specific things in regard to packaging and labeling the seeds. In reality, I get the impression that customs never bothers to check packages that contain seeds and people rarely actually use the permit.

i dont like to read too much into text as its hard to really see the tone, but i got the feeling he was a bit of a douche... but i could be wrong.

Beautiful Sundew, a D.menziesii, would love to get some seed, I'm just looking on carnivoria.eu, and seen a Drosera auriculata which looks pretty much very similar, ill probably just order a plant from their and a few other things.

thanks guys, Ill be moving soon to a country house with a bit of land, it has a green house already built so ill be looking forward to growing as many carnivorous plants as possible, lol, and then selling the exess

To be honest it doesn't really matter. People buy live plants overseas without permits all the time, I doubt anyone would care about seeds.

I know the person you are talking about. Believe it or not, here in the U.S. there are a lot less carnivorous plants available at online nurseries and in people's collections. Since Europeans in the UN often are able to acquire these rare plants, people in the U.S. don't want to take the trouble to send them out, especially since they are more valued here. The Drosera you are interested in is a tuberous, winter growing sundew, I would search those terms in European CP sites. You might not find any ava8lable right now, they are usually sold as dormant tubers during the summer.

I don't know if this person was being intentionally rude or misleading. Honestly 99%+ of USPS employees have no clue about the very complex import laws. Even the agriculture department employees will give you different answers depending on the time of the day.

It is a bit silly to say that if a seller were to forget to include the phytosanitary/CITIES/import permit that I'm going to get fined or jailed.

If we really get technical, even many of the interstate transfers of plants we do could could come under question.

Smooter80 wrote:I don't know if this person was being intentionally rude or misleading. Honestly 99%+ of USPS employees have no clue about the very complex import laws. Even the agriculture department employees will give you different answers depending on the time of the day.

It is a bit silly to say that if a seller were to forget to include the phytosanitary/CITIES/import permit that I'm going to get fined or jailed.

If we really get technical, even many of the interstate transfers of plants we do could could come under question.

Dr. Greenthumb does not live in the U.S., so legality of importation depends upon the laws of of his country. I know the grower he is talking about. Yes, he can come across as rude, it's sort of his personality. I had to learn to get over that, but his strict attitude comes from the fact that he is straightforward in his speaking, no sugar-coating. He is extremely helpful and usually always responds to questions on how to grow his lesser known plants. I can understand why he would come across as a jerk in this situation, as there have recently been an influx of people on the facebook groups that drool over his plants and are always asking if they can buy them.

Whenever I've bought seeds from outside the British Isles they have arrived in a jiffy bag with a declaration of contents stuck to the front. To my knowledge, this was all that was needed, even on seeds being sent from the States. I haven't ordered from that far abroad for a long time so I don't know if it's changed.

It is not the U.S. export laws that matter, it is the import laws of the country receiving the seeds. Here, tuberous Drosera are rarer. Most people in the U.S. don't want to bother sending out seeds that will likely be destroyed.

Thanks for the help guys, Im not 100% familiar with Spanish laws but i have many times bought seeds from america with no issues. Spain is pretty relaxed with most things, My Cephalotus I just brought over on the plane in a little box on my lap, mind you that was with in Europe.

Yeah I didn't want to waste my time trying to convince him its fine, i just left it. I've put a notice in the CPUK forum for the D.menziesii that I'm after, I'm also after a D. stolonifera which im in love with, what a beauty!!

Yes Benurmanii, good points, i read that Tuberous Drosera come active in winter time, so basically now, makes sense that sellers probably choose summer to sell them.