A flask of Philodendron spiritus-sancti plantlets sat on a folding table at a Florida show last spring, each one labeled, each one priced at a fraction of what a single mature plant had commanded two years earlier. The seller wasn't apologetic about it. He was matter-of-fact, the way a fishmonger is matter-of-fact about the morning's catch. Around him, collectors did the math in their heads and then did it again.
The arithmetic of rarity has been quietly rewritten over the last five years, and tissue culture is the pen. Labs in Thailand, the Netherlands, Florida, and increasingly Vietnam and Indonesia have taken species that used to move hand-to-hand among a few hundred serious growers and turned them into SKUs. The question isn't whether this is happening. It's what it actually changes — and, more interestingly, what it leaves untouched.