Marilyn Light (North American chair of the Orchid Specialist Group) used to give OrchidSafari chats on the idea of orchid conservation vis a vis hobbyist's orchid collections. Or to put it another way, since habitat is being lost our collections just may wind up housing important plants, maybe even one's no longer found in the wild. You may or may not agree with that idea but one of the things Marilyn used to stress was to keep and maintain a list of all your orchids, hybrids included, because some just might become important.
Lo and behold, my mentor did keep a list of her orchids. More importantly she *maintained* the list! Dang, she even input purchases made just a few days before she died. (The woman was compulsive, *G*.) I can't tell you how easy it has been for her family to figure out what's in the GH. It only took a day to figure out what's still extant in her collection. Way more easy than the daunting task of cataloging what's in her library and potting shed.
So, while Marilyn Light might have had some lofty goal, thinking that a list of what's in the GH could conserve orchids in the wild, in reality its made one facet of my mentor's heir's lives real easy. People here have mentioned their orchid databases, some that even include flowering records. *Kudos to you all!* I never really was 'together' enough to make a list of my orchids, much less keep it current but now I'm considering it and including my library's books, too. I figure my heirs deserve a clue as to what's worthwhile in all the crap they may want to dump or sell on eBay.
K Barrett