Looking absolutely dazzling in the garden now, is the star of the genus, Baptisia arachnifera. This superb garden plant from only two counties in Coastal Georgia, is very easy to grow, but sadly very rare in the wild. It’s Federally Endangered status is due to most (95%) of its habitat being crowded out by commercial pine plantations. You would think the Feds would want more people to grow this ex-situ, but sadly, that’s not the case, and as such, we are restricted from shipping it outside of North Carolina.
We’ve grown this from seed for the last 40 years, so you’d think it should be easy to get permits, but there’s an entire bureaucracy dedicated to making sure it stays rare, and most of all, out of commerce. As you can see, it flowers almost three months after most of the other baptisia species. We never seem to have enough stock for our on-site customers, but eventually this amazing plant will be spread to gardeners across the country and world.
“However, most of the occurrences are located on private lands without protection or
management. Over 80 percent of the private property is pine plantation, with most of it
commercially owned by Rayonier, Inc., and to a lesser extent by the Weyerhaeuser Company,
W.C. Hopkins and Sons, LLLP, and the Westervelt Company (qPublic 2024a and b).”
https://ecosphere-documents-production-public.s3.amazonaws.com/sams/public_docs/species_nonpublish/26379.pdf
Why is it so controlled? thanks.
Because government bureaucrats have no understanding of horticulture, and consquently equate plants with animals and minerals. The background was their desire is to make sure plants aren’t collected from the wild for sale, which never would make sense with a baptisia. It would be far too logical and easy to actually inspect each nursery and certify them to be ethical stewards through propagation. I’ll probably be dead before the Federal government manages to do anything so logical.
what cool plant
how absurd that it has restrictions on growing it
When you look up the word absurb, my dictionary lists as a synonym: Federal Government regulations
It was my understanding that the formerly federally protected Echinacea tennesseensis was given the varietal name ‘Rocky Top’ by some Tennessee native plant mail order nurseries specifically to get around the shipping restrictions on endangered plant species. Is that no longer an option as a way to get around the fed regs?
Yes, you are correct. There is this bizarre belief in the native plant community that cultivars no longer belong to the same species. So, to them, when you are born, and your parents give you a cultivar name, like ‘Jane Jones’, you are no longer a Homo sapien. This was indeed use to keep the Feds at bay when Echinacea tennessensis first hit the mail order market. Fortunately, the coneflower was officially delisted in 2011, making it a moot point.