The DM arrives at 11:47 on a Tuesday night: a Philodendron spiritus-sancti, well-rooted, four leaves, $850, shipping Wednesday if you can send today. The photo is sharp enough to count the trichomes on the petiole. The seller's feed shows a tidy grow tent, a few satisfied buyers, a repost from someone you vaguely recognize. Your thumb hovers over the payment app. This is the moment the hobby tests you.
Vetting is not paranoia. It is the price of entry to a market that runs on cuttings, trust, and international postage, where the same cultivar name can mean three different plants and a juvenile leaf can look like almost anything. The collectors who have been at this for a decade are not smarter than you. They are slower. They ask one more question, request one more photo, wait one more day. The rest of this piece is what those questions look like.