Subject: Re: re Echinacea (fwd)

From: Victor Guest <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1998 10:12:07 WST

Reply-To: [email-masked]

> >Hi Vic,
> >
> >Would you mind putting a email out to agricultural organisations 
> >(I am sure you have a list that you regularly use) for 
> >information about growing echinacea. I am still not confident 
> >in using lists.
> >
> >with thanks
> >
> >Pat
> 
> Hi friends, I hope you have some info for Pat. If you are on the Perma list
> please feel free to write to [email-masked] ( a reply to one of the 
> perma posts, will create the address as well) I will also help where I can.

	Well, this appeared in our e-mail this morning, and I think it must 
be for my hubby, as he is on your list.  BUT...  Since I maintain a
website for the Native American Seed Co, I'm going to answer it.

	The company has an extensive website, including a lot of stuff on
restoration of prairies and use of native plant material in the home
landscape.  We're working on a lot of material on creating 
wildlife habitat right now, and hope to have it up soon.  There is an 
online catalog with over 125 grasses and wildflowers native to to 
Texas, and includes two varieties of Echinacea  (purpurea, & 
angustifolia).  Of course, some of the plants are native to other 
states as well, but we try to encourage people to use material that 
comes from their area.  These are not cultivars, like a lot of 
companies offer, but true natives  (seeds harvested in the wild).  
I'm trying to list as much information on each plant as I possibly 
can, to help everyone have success with these plants.

	You will also find a Native Gardening section on the site, where you 
can post specific questions.  When we put the post-it page up, we 
were hoping for some experienced native gardeners to throw in some 
information regarding their successes and failures with natives.  As 
of now, I seem to be the only one making any effort at answering the 
posted questions.  Y'all jump in there, please!  I'd love to see some 
of you folks helping us to spread the word!

	Please feel free to browse the catalog for information on the 
plants.  It uses the Perl$hop program for online ordering, but you 
can certainly look, without buying anything.

	The Native American Seed Co. site is located at:

	http://www.seedsource.com

Regards,

Sharon Ward
[email-masked]

---

From: Victor Guest <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1998 10:32:57 WST

Sender: [email-masked]
From: "Peter Buesseler" <[email-masked]>
------------
Edited 
Vic
----------------------end-------------------
The increasing popularity of Echinacea has brought with it some problems for
conserving this plant in its native habitat. Regrettably, poaching is
becoming a serious problem in several prairie states.  Here are a couple
articles you can read about this issue.
------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Buesseler,  State Prairie Biologist
MN DNR Scientific and Natural Areas Program
1221 E. Fir Ave., Fergus Falls, MN 56537
218/739-7497,  218/739-7601 (fax)
Great Plains Partnership <www.greatplains.org>
Red River Basin Information Network <www.eerc.und.nodak.edu/rrbin/>

**********************************
Native Plants
Coneflowers' Popularity: Prescription for Trouble?
National Wildlife Federation, June/July 1997

http://www.nwf.org/nwf/natlwild/1997/plantjj7.html

*********************************
>From All Outdoors, May 8, 1998, Missouri Dept of Conservation.
News contact: Jim Low, Jefferson City, Missouri, (573) 751-4115
Available via Internet at: http://www.conservation.state.mo.us/news/out

Plant poaching plagues Missouri's wild places
Illegal digging of wild plants for profit and for personal use is
devastating some of Missouri's most beautiful places.

The increase in illegal plant digging seems to be driven by the growing
popularity of "natural" medicines. The root of the pale purple coneflower,
also known by the name "Echinacea," is a popular health product on the
shelves of nutrition stores. It is said to help prevent or cure colds by
increasing the number of white blood cells. Root diggers also take
goldenseal, ginseng, Virginia snake root and American feverfew.

A Missouri company that buys herbs nationwide did $14 million worth of
business in 1996. However, when it comes to stealing plants, individual
collectors are responsible for the most part.
The Conservation Department encourages the public to report plant poachers
by calling the Operation Game Thief/Forest Arson toll-free hot line,
1-800-392-1111, or the local conservation agent.

- Jim Auckley -

***************************************
Medicinal herbFAQ - contents page
All you ever wanted to know - and ask on a newsgroup - more often than once
a month - about medicinal herbs. A FAQ for alt.folklore.herbs and the
medicinal herblist.
Version 1.33, last updated 21Aug98.
http://sunsite.unc.edu/herbmed/mediher2.html#c2_1_8_1

2.1.8.1 Echinacea - poaching and extinction
-----
Thread on the phytopharmacognosy list:

> Over 90% of all Echinacea material in the U.S. and Europe comes from
cultivated species. There is very little wild harvested ech. on the market.
The claim that the use of ech. preparations contributes to the extinction of
this plant species is nonsense. Such claims may apply to other medicinal
plants but not to the easy to cultivate Ech. spp..

>From P. Mick Richardson <[email-masked]>, to above:

Disappearance of the plant in the wild may be nonsense to you but it is
reality to those of us who live in areas where the plant is native. Several
points. The plant is easy to grow in cultivation but if you have no land on
which to grow it you can get ready cash by collecting it in the wild. Even
if 90% comes from cultivated sources, the remaining 10% is still a massive
amount in relation to the ever decreasing number of plants in the wild,
especially when consumption rises each year and the 10% translates into an
ever increasing number of plants to be sought.

After receiving your message, I sought out a local person who collects seeds
of Echinacea from wild plants in Missouri for cultivation of the plant. He
confirmed my suspicions that the plant is becoming non-existent in many
parts of Missouri as local populations are exterminated. So the nonsense is
in fact reality to the people who see the plants. I suggest greater
cultivation of the plant would decrease the demand for wild-harvested
material. After all, no-one would be killing rhinos and elephants for sale
if there was not a market for them. Let's stop before Echinacea becomes a
great auk or a passenger pigeon example for textbooks. Sorry to ramble on,
but extinction is for ever and it would be shameful for herbalists to
contribute to it.

-----
.. and more in the same thread:

From: P. Mick Richardson <[email-masked]>:

It is illegal to collect Echinacea unless it is on your own property in
Missouri. However, if someone offers cash for echinacea plants, then the
demand will be met by poaching. Although on a lesser scale, it is no
different to the situation with rhino horm and elephant ivory. If there is a
cash market, people will provide the product. I could give descriptions of
the nationalities of the buyers but this is probably unnecessary. The plants
end up in Europe, presumably the site of greatest demand.

Hopefully, there will soon be enough Echinacea in cultivation that the price
will fall and this may remove the demand for wild-collected plants. Until
then, if you encourage the use of Echinacea, you endanger the plants growing
wild in Missouri. Admittedly Echinacea is being poached on a lesser scale
than Panax or Hydrastis, but it is still disappearing. Let's aim for
complete domestication. It works for Ginkgo, which is a cultivated cash crop
in the U.S.A. now.