The first thing I do in another collector's grow space, after the polite circuit of compliments, is look at the labels. Not the plants — the labels. A row of Anthurium seedlings under a humidifier can tell you only so much; the little plastic stakes wedged beside them tell you the rest. Whether the writing is in pencil or paint pen. Whether the Latin is spelled out or abbreviated to a private shorthand. Whether there is a cross, a date, a collector code, an Ecuagenera lot number, or nothing at all but a wishful magnificum in block capitals.
Collectors read each other this way without quite meaning to. The labels are a kind of dialect. You can tell, often within thirty seconds, whether someone is two years in or fifteen, whether they grew up in horticulture or arrived through Instagram, whether they intend to flower and cross their plants or simply keep them alive and beautiful on a shelf. It is one of the quietest status games in the hobby, and one of the most honest.