Exotica Esoterica – the Whence and Whither

by Jay Vannini

A new tropical nature-ornamental gardening-terrarium-aquarium-birding website on the internet is upon us. Here’s a healthy alternative to your daily doomscrolling.

Just what all you folks need, right?

The Andean orchid, *Masdevalia ignea* 'Pink Flare'. Author’s collection. ©Jay Vannini 2018.

For the horticulturally-inclined fortunate enough to be living in countries with developed economies, there has never been a better time to be a grower and collector of tropical plants. The diversity and ready availability of new species and hybrids, the tools available to growers and the advances in plant nutrition, artificial lighting, and state-of-the-art irrigation systems, etc. have combined to make the early 21st century the Third Golden Age to indulge a penchant for tropical gardening and rare tropical plant collecting. This is today’s setting whether it be in a traditional greenhouse, warm garden setting, or in a high-tech, automated-systems’-managed paludarium or terrarium. The playground is essentially the same level field whether one is a deliberative graybeard species orchid connoisseur, a hipster specialist succulent enthusiast, a mossy-backed tropical aquarist, a serial collector of poison dart frog color morphs, or a fanatic teenage grower-collector of carnivorous plants.

Likewise, a cadre of increasingly well-trained and knowledgeable ecotourism guides in tropical countries around the world is both ready and able to show visitors their lesser-known natural wonders, and are only a few mouse clicks and a few thousand miles away from your front door.

My advice? Find a really wild place that is an attractive destination match for your interests, find a reputable guide in that country, find the time, and then?

Go for it!

“Loud, vulgar, and clueless are the squeakiest wheels on the internet.”

Cloud forest epiphytic cactus *Disocactus salvadorensis*, corolla details. Author’s collection. Image: ©Jay Vannini 2023.

Like others I know, I have long been frustrated by–given the attractive subject matter–the surprising banality of most tropical gardening as well as rare plant and small animal collecting fora on the internet. From my perspective these are dominated and/or curated by a host of mostly unimaginative and semi-informed individuals, some of whom provide absolutely no evidence that they are successful keepers themselves. Many of these sites appear to simply aggregate or outright pilfer bits and pieces of content and images from other sources, “copy + paste” text, then post it to the internet purporting to be original material.

Others, quite frankly, peddle drivel. The contributors just make things up, apparently in the hope their target audience remains as naïve and susceptible to lies as they themselves are. This is a typical example of the widespread internet phenomenon of every third-tier intellect fancying themselves an expert on any given subject.

There are some notable exceptions, including many that are herpetoculture- or aquarium-related. Until now, surprisingly few of these are based in the U.S.. All of the open fora that deal with specific families or natural groupings of plants (e.g. orchids, palms, succulents, aroids, and carnivores) suffer from the practical necessity of letting anyone with a connected device and an opinion add comments and, in doing so, inevitably result in substantial dumbing-down of the topic matter and level of discourse for all.

There are excellent reasons other than time constraints why many well-known nurserymen, botanist-collectors, and owners of large private collections of rare tropical plants do not, as a rule, participate in exotic plant fora, much less on social media. Based on personal experience and comments made by friends, I suspect that most have been either chased off or have thrown up their hands and turned away in exasperation.

Loud, vulgar, and clueless are the squeakiest wheels on the internet.

Online ornamental plant discussion groups, once laid-back, entertaining, and informative hangouts for collectors, have now been transformed largely into sandboxes populated by cliques of near hysterical, perpetually angry, low-information individuals. I acknowledge that there are the occasional rational voices willing to share valuable information to those who are inclined to listen, but their contributions usually get lost in an avalanche of babble and long-winded, bullshit expositions by envious trolls and armchair pedants.

Peristome detail of the Critically Endangered natural hybrid Sumatran Pitcher Plant, *Nepenthes* *rigidifolia* x *spectabilis*. Author’s collection. Image: ©Jay Vannini 2019.

Social media sites–Oy Vey!–harvest all the negative flotsam and jetsam from traditional internet fora, freight them with even more brain-dead chatter, breathtaking displays of narcissism, cringe-worthy inauthenticity and extraneous nonsense, and then lard the whole dog's breakfast with ostensibly targeted advertising (i.e., “spam”) and exploitative user tracking. Many are nothing more than a toxic stew of misinformation, personal enmities, spiteful and infantile behavior graffiti-ed with ads for various types of garbage (Hello, Reddit?).

This cookie-cutter approach to engagement, slice-in-time content, and lack of longer-term value to advanced growers is particularly evident on the best known social media platforms.

Beyond this, the major social media sites are creepy Panopticons, aggressively spying on their users and openly and actively stifling contrarian speech and a free exchange of ideas. Evidence has emerged suggesting that at least two of them are also complicit in the persecution of transparency activists and dissidents in the Developing World. There is recent, credible reporting that the worst of all of them shamelessly exploits its moderators, treats them as nothing more than disposable entities, and leaves them psychologically damaged and walking wounded when they finally cast them aside. All these platforms amplify discordant views, stoke controversies, foment strife and “monetize hatred” (see Maureen Dowd’s excellent article on this topic in the NYT, 2020) as key components of their business models.

All claims of good intentions aside, social media is clearly a massive fail when it comes to actually bringing people closer together.

It seems fairly obvious that someone will come up with the combination of the right formula and carefully filtered audience that makes a curated internet forum on collecting and growing rare exotic plants function at a high level, perhaps via a distributed ledger-based or–more likely in my opinion– a “walled garden-type” solution with informed and hard-nosed moderators on hand at all times.

In the meantime, we’re left with the option of offering high-end content to promote interest and disseminate information on rare tropical plant cultivation and hope for the best.

‘nuff said about all that boring stuff.

This website is designed to cater to the botanical and small animal specialist who is more than passingly familiar with general plant trade offerings and offbeat tropical flora and fauna, hence “Exotica Esoterica”. While mostly focused on the origins, cultivation, and propagation of challenging horticultural rarities, from time to time it will cover more mainstream plants in cultivation as well. Major separate sections on the site will be dedicated to natural history-themed eye candy, photographic technique, and examination of man's impact on nature in Latin America. Given the current wave of crossover interest from collectors of unusual tropical plants to freshwater and marine tropical fish, reptiles and amphibians, arachnids, and insects–as well as vice versa–these critters, both in the field as well as their care and housing in captivity, will also be showcased here.

All of those involved with Exotica Esoterica are enthusiastic fans of the feathered folk and have worked with them extensively in the field as guides and researchers, in aviaries as captive breeders, in falconry and in Neotropical avian conservation planning. Hence, plenty of very pretty rare tropical bird shots and other avian-themed Easter eggs scattered about this website.

And (almost) finally, the main point of this website is to educate people that their captive trophies–be it a species orchid, aroid, bromeliad, palm, lizard, frog, live coral, or large spider–are in nature unique and valuable micro-components of very complex tropical ecosystems around the world, and are best viewed and appreciated in this context, and not just as expensive playthings.

“In short, feel free to roam around the property.”

Exceptional wild-origin Red Flamingo Flower, *Anthurium andraeanum,* from Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador. Author’s collection. Image: ©Jay Vannini 2019.

It may seem redundant to people who know the main contributors, but it is perhaps worth pointing out to those who don’t is that the material shown on this website is overwhelmingly “homegrown” by us.

I am constantly flabbergasted by the number of self-proclaimed experts or online ”influencers” that have proliferated on the web over the past two decades, usually by brazenly standing on someone else’s shoulders (or heads), confidently opining on subjects they have little or no first hand experience with. The plants and animals shown and grown here have all been photographed by Peter Rockstroh, William W. Lamar, and myself with a few notable exceptions (my good friends Ron Parsons together with a couple very talented others’ numerous and very valuable contributions come to mind), mainly in nature in LatAm or being propagated and/or are living in our personal collections across three countries. Across all the articles published so far there are about a dozen excellent images uploaded from Creative Commons (duly credited), as well as a pair of photos used with permission under paid commercial license (ditto). There are also a handful of images that have been included that were taken in public gardens or of friends’ and acquaintances’ plants where we felt that they add value to the photographic content that underpins the rest of an article.

The recent website renovation is still ongoing so there may be wonky links and the odd bug, typo or–hopefully very rare–misidentification here and there that we will sort out as soon as they are detected (he said confidently). Self editing content for any sort of critical audience is, rather like catching falling knives, always a perilous endeavor so I try to be extra careful here.

As will soon be apparent to the curious, there is an enormous amount of original material on Exotica Esoterica and it is, admittedly, rather easy for a newcomer to get lost. The site is designed to stimulate exploration by visitors–much like tropical nature itself–when the best experiences found where the wild things are usually involve treks on paths less taken, raking through leaf litter, prying up bark, venturing into caves, ascending into the high canopy and even putting on a diving mask and immersing oneself in the aquatic realm.

In short, feel free to roam around the property.

As I re-edit this introduction in December 2023 and with more than 100 articles published on the site to date, for some visitors it may seem more a topically diverse reference work on New World tropical organisms than an online natural history magazine, but we’re fine with either descriptor.

Emergent leaf on a Pink Leaf Horncone Cycad, *Ceratozamia rosea,* Chiapas, México. Image: Jay Vannini 2023.

But, for Crissakes and as a personal favor, please don’t call it a “blog”.

Exotica Esoterica performs best on a high-resolution screen with a fast broadband internet connection, either with a PC, laptop or iPad/tablet (rotated sideways). It should display well on almost any recent generation mobile device, but the large image sizes and other content makes it a bit of a task to scroll through on a smartphone, which ironically is how most (~70%) visitors engage with the site.

Since being launched in early August 2018, friends whose opinions I value have observed that it is dead easy to get lost on the site because of the volume of content. That said, this newly-designed site will load much faster and should be far easier for visitors to navigate.

Harlequin Poison Frog, *Oophaga histrionica*. Image: ©Peter M. Rockstroh 2019.

My best friend and longtime wingman, Peter Rockstroh, currently of Bogotá, Colombia, is the author of almost all the material related to that country's natural history, as well as all topics related to nature and studio photography. My compadre Bill Lamar has graciously provided many superb photographs and gripping narratives from a lifetime of fieldwork in North, Central, and South America. Conspicuously talented buddy Ron Parsons of Flowershots fame on Flickr–as well as an author and contributor to a long list of excellent book titles–has been extraordinarily generous in providing use of his fantastic photos taken in the field and in private collections around the world. As will be evident when perusing the site, French eco-guide Fred Muller, now based in Guatemala City, Guatemala has also very kindly provided a number of his top-notch images captured in situ of flora and fauna from the back of beyond in México, Central, and South America. Other late-coming contributors of the site from tropical northeastern Australia, Guatemala, Colombia, México or the 'States may also post content from time to time. Any image or post without attribution may be presumed to be mine (Jay Vannini). All else shown here is from professional nature photographers who derive income from their work. For my part, I seethe when finding my images being abused on a complete stranger's website or (much, much worse) on eBay, Etsy, and/or Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook, so:

Please do not use any images from this website for any purpose without their photographer's specific written permission.

Unless otherwise noted, the cultivated plants shown on this site are the property of Jay Vannini. We don't "aggregate" or "borrow" others' images here without attribution, and all content is original and copyrighted by Exotica Esoterica LLC® and contributors unless otherwise noted. Violations of ©copyright protected material and theft of Intellectual Property (IP) are serious crimes that may lead to severe civil sanctions being levied on individuals or entities that do so.

To those who still don’t get it, be forewarned that we reserve the right to aggressively defend our trademarks and copyrighted material by all legal means at our disposal and will also not be shy about naming and shaming thieves of our IP wherever they live.

Multiflowered Pride of Table Mountain, *Disa uniflora*. Author’s collection. Image: ©Jay Vannini 2020.

When relevant and/or considered to be valuable to the reader, links to offsite websites may pop up here and there.

No comments section is provided, but interested readers with intelligent questions and commentary can contact me/us via the email link provided at the bottom of the main page or here also: cyclanthaceae@gmail.com.

Please do not write asking for free seed or stem cuttings, ornamental plant identifications, houseplant sowing & growing recommendations, landscaping or interior design suggestions, or inquiring as to why your supermarket phalaenopsis orchid, anthurium, bromeliad or your PetSmart red-eyed treefrog, bearded dragon or African cichlid is giving up the ghost. This also applies to requests for cultivation tips on plants of any kind bought from third parties that aren’t living up to your expectations. To be frank, these types of queries trumpet a tactless mentality and will be ignored/junked.

If your very expensive houseplant or small animal is kicking the bucket for no apparent good reason, we urge you to contact the vendor, not us.

No promises as to any response time, but we’ll try and answer any worthwhile query with aplomb and in an informed and polite manner.

While almost all of the content posted here to date is free and will likely remain so, we are not part-time capitalists so some paid subscription-linked content began to be included in May 2022. We may also mention products or services that we use ourselves. Good friends of the authors will always ride gratis, so links to their ecotourism businesses or personal websites of note may appear within or at the end of articles from time to time.

The 2022 renovation of the website was designed by Mazzarello Media & Arts of Los Angeles and myself. Stephanie and Bryan down there have done an amazing job with a project that has many, many moving parts. I highly recommend them as counterparts in imagineering, plumbing and wiring new websites in the English speaking world.

Exotica Esoterica is updated on a regular basis with new posts that cover a variety of subjects relating to ornamental tropical horticulture, the natural history of the New World tropics, conservation biology, ecotourism & travel, thoughts on commercial traffic and captive management of wild flora and fauna, together with advanced nature photography techniques.