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[SoulGrower]

Although I've been growing plants and maintaining gardens my whole life, in just the last year, I've come to some stark realizations. 

In my most present manifestation, I now find myself interested in collecting, growing and developing relationships with very specific plants.  Plants with medicinal properties for example.  Plants that require accurate identification.  Yet, it is the proper identification that appears to be the most challenging.  The most important lesson learned:  if identification is important, do your homework!  And that's easier said than done     The next most important lesson:  There are a ton of misidentified plants/seeds/etc in circulation!  And most likely, noone's fault really.  Without being a botanist and having access to the right literature/resources.. it seems quite hard to make proper identifications.

So, I feel obligated to, regretfully, inform those members to which I sent a 'Piper methysticum' aka Kava Kava plant or cutting to.  I do this, as I've done in the past, with hopes to halt further misnomer.  I apologize for not doing my due diligence beforehand.. but often these things take time.  And when I am sold a 'Kava Kava' plant and it performs well, I get excited that I can share it with others.  In fact, my 'Kava' has been doing SO well, that I was really getting excited to share with everyone here bc it seems to be a hard plant to source and cultivate.

Well.. there's a reason it's been doing so well.  It's bc it's not P methysticum.  It's Piper auritum!  .. i think LOL.  So, to all those whom I sent a so called Kava plant or cutting to.. it turns out you actually have auritum    It's also known as a Root Beer plant.  It's still a cool and great plant, I just want to stop the misnomer in it's tracks.  And I'm actually quite certain it is auritum from what I've read.. smells like root beer (or strangely a bit like ben-gay) when you crush the leaf, invasive, spreading habit, etc.

I stumbled upon this information, coincidentally, while researching another plant (and then a vendor I recently made a purchase from).  This vendor was listed with another vendor (also selling misidentified plants).  This other vendor was selling Kava which was actually auritum.  It in turn led me to research auritum.. which led me to this:
Piper auritum

I had just assumed, when someone sold me a Kava plant, that it was a Kava plant.  So my apologies to all! 

3 Likes happyconcacti, Frog Pajamas and fairdinkumseeds like this.

[Saros]

I thought it rooted incredibly fast:-p
Thank you for the clarification. I'll still treasure them for what they are!

[BubbleCat]

Im experiencing this issue too, lately, I was always used to collecting what I like and cultivating it, I never cared much about names before. I feel like we could make a thread for this issue, where people can read about the possible lookalikes of some and also about the misIDs other members made in case they forgot the individual members they have send the species in question.

I was close to bring a shipment away and luckily remembered I should change one label to a more general Name - I luckily remembered P. Dubium (of all things it happened with Papaver...) can easily be mistaken for P. Rhoeas. I recently collected either species at night so Im really not sure anymore I will now change the label and consider the situation saved but I guess its not the last time.

Maybe someone who's a ID crack could come up with a sensible sheme that members can use to inform about lookalikes and the properties used to tell them from each other ?

Things I have struggled with recently:

Hypericum Perforatum & Hypericum Maculatum
Papaver Rhoeas & Papaver Dubium
Matricaria & Tripleurospermum