(While searching for something else I came across this page that lists some old varieties that are only available from a limited number of sources, often just one.)

I spent some time looking at what this lady wrote. And she certainly put a lot of energy and time into creating this webpage.

But what does endangered really mean? Does it mean only one seed sourcce carries seeds, or two, or if a seed saving organization has it is it still endangered? She doesn 't address this issue.

What she has done is to pick a few varieties from a number of categories and presented them as endangered. The varieties she's picked are ones where histories are known; there are many more with no histories and perhaps many more in toto, again, depending on what is meant by endangered.

Even for the ones she presents, and given the date was 2003, there are many other seed sources than she mentions for most of them that I looked at.

I also looked at her definition of what an heirloom is and what open pollinated means, and in my opinion there are problems there as well, especially with her understanding of open pollinated versus hybrid.

Her enthusiasm for the area of heirloom veggies is ob vious, and that's great, but I'm not so sure representng such a list as endangered veggies is that helpful. Her few brief selections are hers, and not necessarily what folks who specialize in particular areas might have as their lists, if indeed they do have lists.

Carolyn

It's getting scary, Carolyn, how much we agree lately. :>)

My reaction to her list was exactly the same as yours. Plus, even using her implied definition (publicly available varieties with only one source) it is a woefully short list.

Using her definition of endangered, we would have to include every variety in the Garden Seed Inventory that only has one or two sources. And there are thousands of those.

Granted, the Garden Seed Inventory is due for an update. But I don't think the total number of "endangered" varieties will change dramatically when it is revised.

BTW, even those the "last revised" date was 2003, that web site has been around for quite some time.

On a related topic, someone ought to put up a page (or pages) of lost varieties. I'm thinking that a few varieties are still grown by a seed saver somewhere. If they happen to know the name they might do an online search and discover that someone wants it. At present they might do a search and find that there is almost no information for an old variety.

By the way, a search on Google for the words "lost varieties" turned up some interesting results, like a group of people in Ireland talking to older people and searching abandoned orchards to rediscover a number of lost apple varieties.

A single such list would be near impossible, Mistercross, as it would encompas thousands of varieties just in the 20th century.

However, many of the seed saving organizations do offer a search service. Seed Savers Exchange, for instance, offers such a service to its members in, if I recall, the Summer edition.

Appalachian Heirloom Seed Concervancy has a Seed Search feature in each of its monthly newsletters for that very purpose.

Even some commercial seed houses offer this service. Victory Seeds, for instance, has a seed search as part of its web site.

Right here at GardenWeb, each of the vegetable-oriented forums, and some of the others, has an exchange page where folks can post varieties they're looking for.

So, while none of these offer the one-stop shopping you are suggesting, they're all a step in that direction.

To follow up on the previous message about searching for lost apple varieties, here are some similar stories:

Smithsonian Magazine

Tom Brown searches for Hall Apple

Irish Seed Savers

Also, here are some hints about identifying apple varieties:
Penn State
By the way, Bear Creek Nursery is no longer in business. Not sure about the other two references.

(To follow up on the previous message about searching for lost apple varieties, her e are some similar stories:)

And the Penn State article hits the nail on the head and that's that ID of old apple varieties is almost impossible to do.

In that Penn State article they referred to the series of books on apples, peaches, plums, etc., published in NYS around 1900 and mentioned that they are collectors items. They are.

But I'm lucky to have the two volume apple one and the peach one as well.

I live in an area where there are lots of abandoned orchards and wanted to see how well I could do with IDing apples, especially.

I found it was impossible, at least for me.

Do you have any idea of how many possibilites there might be? In the Penn article he said around 6,000.

Many folks are maintaining orchards with historic apple varieties. SSE in Decorah, IA has one, the Geneva Experimental Station of Cornell has a huge one, and there are many many collectors.

I have a friend in Indiana who has about 1000 different varieties in his orchards.

its' not hard for folks who want to grow heirloom apples to do so for there are now many many nurseries that carry a wide variety of them.

Here in NYS it would be Miller Nursery and St Laurence Nursery, for instance. But a quick Google search brings up many many nurseries that specialize in heirloom fruit trees.

And yes, folks in Europe are also searching for any varieties that may have been written about years ago and not yet found.

The same is true not just for tree fruit s but also for veggies, herbs, flowers and all things that grow.

Something that's known and in cultivation somewhere can be said to be endangered, if it indeed is. If something is written about and not known to be extant it can't be endangered just b/c it's been written about since it's not known to be in cultivation somewhere.

Carolyn

The farm I grew up on in Idaho had a dozen huge apple trees with lovely green, tart, crisp apples that sunburn to stripes of red and yellow. A couple times we called an apple expert out to try and ID them. None could, just told us it was some "Antique variety". But it spoiled me for commercial apples forever.