Uprooted.

The Worldwide Plant Crisis Is Accelerating

Janet Marinelli trekked more than 13 miles a day along the ocean beaches of Long Island in search of the wild amaranth, a plant everyone assumed had been extinct for 40 years until, out of the blue, news reports started coming in that the plant had reappeared in, of all places, New York. Her feet sinking into the pillows of sand with each step, Marinelli wanted to see the annual plant for herself. Would it be back?

Stopping every three or four miles for a break, she and a colleague trudged on, until finally noticing something poking out of the sand in a spectacular stretch of Hamptons beach. "It was really one of the biggest thrills of my life," recalls Marinelli, director of publishing at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Yet the thrill was dampened. "It was wild amaranth, but it had just been squashed by a four-wheel-drive vehicle" Marinelli says. It was an epiphany. Here she was, standing above this little mound of a plant measuring about a foot across, with fleshy red stems and spinach-green leaves clustered at the tips of the branches. And not just any plant, but one whose high-protein family is considered a very important staple crop. Marinelli was looking at a plant that ideally could be used to hybridize with the grain amaranth to produce much bigger grains. Produce better food. Here it was. And it had been flattened. By a car.

"This plant became a symbol to me of our attitude toward nature" says Marinelli, who recounted her journey to find the seabeach amaranth in her 1998 book, Stalking the Wild Amaranth: Gardening in the Age of Extinction.

A National Crisis

It would be nice if Marinelli's story were an anomaly. Yet a resounding one in eight plants worldwide is threatened with extinction, according to the 1997 World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List of,Threatened Plants, representing a 20-year worldwide research effort. That's one in eight.

In the United States, the outlook is even worse: Nearly one in three plants known to exist is at risk. That's 29 percent of the nation's 16,000 known flowers, ferns and conifers at risk of extinction (many of which are not protected under the federal Endangered Species Act). And these are extinctions of known plants. What about plants not yet discovered by scientists?

"The numbers are staggering, not only because they are exceedingly large, but because we are talking about the organisms on which all animal life depends" says David Brackett, chairman of IUCN's Species Survival Commission. "Plants clothe us, feed us and our domestic animals, and provide us with most of our medicines, yet our knowledge of their status is woefully inadequate. This needs to change. We need to invest in botany. We cannot afford to neglect the fate of the world's plants."

To Leslie Landrum, the plant crisis is akin to having all of the world's books that ever will be published in one room, many uncatalogued, "and there's a fire at one end of the room." Plants are "disappearing before we even get a chance to figure out what they are," says Landrum. As curator of Arizona State University's herbarium, she is helping catalog about 100 new species a year in a state that has reportedly transformed desert into development at a rate of one acre a minute.

Not since the days of the dinosaurs did so many species face extinction so quickly, notes botanist Paul Alan Cox. He contends that several generations from now, geologists will not be able to distinguish such a mass extinction from the effects of an asteroid strike.

"I calculate that we're losing one plant species every week, globally," says Cox, director of the National Tropical Botanical Garden and a botanist who shared a prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 1997. "Talk about pulling rivets out of the lifeboat. They're flying out like crazy right now."

It's interesting to put this in human perspective. For every 1,000 people you see, three are likely to die from the nation's biggest killer--heart disease. For every three known members of the lily family, however, one is threatened with extinction. Your chances of dying this year are one in 561 if you're a 25-year-old white man. Your chances of going extinct if you're a member of the iris family are one in three.

The point is this: Maybe the next plant that goes extinct harbored a cure for heart disease. A quarter of prescription drugs contain some sort of component or synthesis from plants, including aspirin from the willow family, glaucoma-fighting pilo carpine, and cancer-battler Taxol from the Pacific yew. Three out of four members of the yew family are threatened; so are one in eight willows.

"Maybe last year, we lost the cure for Parkinson's disease; maybe this week, breast cancer. We don't know. Less than one percent of the world's plant species have ever been studied for medicine," says Cox. "Every time a botanist goes into the rainforest and collects 100 different specimens, one, on average, turns out to be new to science."

Cox speaks frankly, with a clear tone of eagerness, as he's on the frontlines of the extinction battle. On the island of Samoa, his work resulted in the discovery of a plant derivative, prostatin, that has shown promise in treating AIDS. These days, Cox is at ground zero on the U.S. extinction front--Hawaii, home to one-third of the nation's at-risk plants, 263 of which receive protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. No other state has more.

To work for Cox, one must be a fearless mountain climber. Staffer Steve Pearlman has rappelled down 4,000 feet of treacherous terrain on the Na Pali coast of Kauai. Holding out a watercolor brush while dangling, he hand-pollinates a plant sticking out of the cliff. Then he rappells back with seeds from the Brighamia insignus. Cox says his staffers "just fly across the gardens dangling from a helicopter" to get the job done.

This Indiana Jones-style of botany has become necessary because of the escalating crisis. Weed killers and insecticides are taking a toll worldwide on bees, moths and butterflies, which traditionally pollinate plants (as do hummingbirds, bats and Pacific flying foxes). In the past five years, a quarter of the nation's bees have disappeared. Some cacti and other plants sit like old maids, waiting for pollinators that will never come.

"I would say that over half the plants for which there's good data are showing reproductive shortfalls due to a lack of pollinators" says Gary Nabhan, director of conservation and science at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson and co-author of The Forgotten Pollinators. He argues that consumers can help by buying pesticide-free produce, which will encourage more farmers to go the organic route. "If we choose pesticide-free food, we're treading lightly on the wild plants that grow near agricultural areas."

The Aliens Are Coming

Robert Devine worries about a different problem--invasive plants, which are often introduced unwittingly by backyard gardeners looking for exotic landscapes. A plant may look like it sits innocuously in the yard, but its seeds can spread in several ways. Winds may disperse them. Perhaps birds will gobble them and drop them elsewhere. "There's a war on, and most Americans don't even know it" contends Devine's 1998 book, Alien Invasion. From kudzu to hydrilla,"invasive species are destroying our native flora and fauna, transforming our landscape and exacting an enormous toll."

In Tahiti, a tree native to tropical rainforests was introduced 60 years ago as an ornamental plant. Now, dense stands of Miconia calvescens have spread over the hillsides to overtake 70 percent of the country, according to the IUCN. It also threatens four islands of Hawaii, where the plant was introduced by the horticultural industry about 40 years ago. About 15 percent of exotics in the U.S. cause "severe harm" according to a 1993 Congressional Office of Technology Assessment report. Meanwhile, weeds around the world spread to squeeze out any weaker natives. "The creation of `superweeds' could force out rare plants and reinforce invasive species problems," says botanist Bruce Stein, director of scientific publications at The Nature Conservancy.

Still, a bigger threat may be exemplified by the Sexton Mountain mariposa lily, an unassuming flower in southwestern Oregon thought to have been wiped out by a road crew when Interstate 5 was built in the 1960s. Frank Lang took students into the hills for several years in hopes of finding the lily--to no avail. "It just doesn't seem to exist anymore" says Lang, now professor emeritus for Southern Oregon University's biology department.

As with endangered wildlife, "habitat loss is the biggest threat facing plants, contends Stein. "That threat can be direct destruction-like the conversion to agricultural lands, development, or clear-cutting. But a disruption of natural processes is also a problem. Periodic burning is required by many ecosystems to stay healthy. Smoky the Bear has been very effective in stopping this, and as the brush builds up on forest floors, it crowds plants--sometimes affecting the rare species that used to thrive there."

Many plants around the world no longer re-seed and remain lone survivors--dubbed "the living dead." At San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the Presidio manzanita is so rare that park officials decline to reveal where the plant is located, though it grows on rare serpentine soil. It is down to one plant in the wild and while cuttings have been nursed into 15 others, they can't self-fertilize.

Botanist Wendy Strahm, a Switzerland-based IUCN Plants Officer in its Species Survival Programme, sees plenty of "the living dead" on the Indian Ocean's Mascarene Islands. One palm tree, Hyophorbe amaricaulis, is down to "one lonely individual," she reports. Strahm fears a cyclone will do it in. More than 200 other species have stopped reproducing, reports the 1999 book Watching; From the Edge of Extinction by Beverly and Stephen Stearns.

Worldwide, "the extinction crisis is very real" Strahm tells E. "We have an extensive list of species on the brink of extinction, plants we will lose in the next century, unless action is taken now. If we cannot conserve the great majority of plant species that exist on this planet today, it will be us that will be heading for extinction," She adds, "People rely on plants for our most basic needs. If I were dying from cancer, or AIDS, or the Ebola virus, I would be very interested in having the right treatment, and would not be happy if that treatment had already become extinct."

So many threats face plant life that it is possible to write entire books about them. And people have. Nine in 10 plants are found in only one country, for instance, reducing options to protect them. Meanwhile, rare cacti, orchids and medicinal plants are big in trade and smuggling, Stein reports. Smuggling from Mexico to the U.S. resulted in seizures of 5,070 rare cacti and 2,141 rare orchids between 1992 and 1996, though the pace is declining, according to TRAFFIC North America. Perhaps of most concern is that while plants and animals go extinct at the fastest rate in human history, the human population is expected to rise from about two billion to nine billion in our lifetime.

The outlook isn't all bad. Around the world, there are botanists rappelling down mountains or otherwise hand-pollinating plants. The Nature Conservancy continues to buy tracts of land to preserve many unique species, while folks like Cox take the Noah's Ark approach, overseeing botanical gardens where cuttings or seeds are transplanted from the wild and tended like prized babies.

But it's important that no one grows complacent. Remember the one in eight figure on extinction? It's likely "a very conservative estimate" says David Brackett. CONTACT: The Nature Conservancy, Conservation Science Division, 4245 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 100, Arlington, VA 22203/[phone]; World Conservation Union, 1630 Connecticut Avenue NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC 20009/(202)387-IUCN.

PLANTS FEDERALLY LISTED AS THREATENED OR ENDANGERED

Alabama            18     Nebraska            3
Alaska              1     Nevada              8
Arizona            15     New Hampshire       4
Arkansas            5     New Jersey          5
California         85     New Mexico         14
Colorado           12     New York            7
Connecticut         2     North Carolina     26
Delaware            4     North Dakota        1
Florida            54     Ohio                6
Georgia            22     Oklahoma            1
Hawaii            263     Oregon              8
Idaho               3     Pennsylvania        3
Illinois            8     Rhode Island        2
Indiana             3     South Carolina     19
Iowa                5     South Dakota        0
Kansas              2     Tennessee          18
Kentucky            8     Texas              27
Louisiana           4     Utah               20
Maine               3     Vermont             2
Maryland            6     Virginia           10
Massachusetts       3     Washington          4
Michigan            7     West Virginia       5
Minnesota           4     Wisconsin           6
Mississippi         3     Wyoming             1
Missouri            7     Washington, DC      0
Montana             2
AN INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM

Country            No. of Known        % of the
                Threatened Species   Nation's Plants

United States         4,669               29 %
Australia             2,245               14 %
South Africa          2,215               11 %
Turkey                1,876               22 %
Mexico                1,593                6 %
Brazil                1,358                2 %
Panama                1,302               13 %
India                 1,236                8 %
Spain                   985               20 %
Peru                    906                5 %

Source: 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants

RELATED ARTICLE: Stalking Medicinal Plants

An International Trade Imperils Wild Herbs

Now that the vitamin aisle at your local drug store abounds with echinacea, goldenseal, ginseng and other supplements, have you ever wondered where your herbal helpers come from?

Peering into the distance, Curley Youpee can see an answer in the pockmarks riddling the hillsides of his Fort Peck, Montana Indian reservation. The holes were left by tribe members who plunge homemade instruments into the ground to yank out wild echinacea. Echinacea has been touted as the best-selling herb at health food stores, representing a $310 million market in the U.S. alone. It also happens to number among 19 wild medicinal plants considered at risk by the Vermont-based nonprofit group United Plant Savers, ranking alongside American ginseng and goldenseal.

Youpee knows lots of out-of-work people who are jumping onto the herbal bandwagon by selling wild echinacea to brokers at a fluctuating price: initially, $3 a pound, then $5, up to a high of $8.50 a pound last summer. Considering unemployment is thought to approach 65 percent among tribal members, the little plant has been a boon. Youpee estimates 250 families scooped up more than 700,000 pounds last year. At five to 20 plants per pound, that adds up to at least 3.5 million plants. That's a lot of pockmarks.

Far away from these Indian lands, other gold-rush stories abound as red-hot medical botanicals go mainstream, becoming a $4 billion annual industry in the U.S. alone. According to a February poll conducted jointly by National Public Radio, The Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, a third of the nation's adults today consider it "very important" to get dietary supplements other than conventional vitamins and minerals, and nearly two-thirds think the supplements can help with colds (though a third erroneously believe the federal government tests health claims). All this is fueling a demand already felt worldwide.

"Imagine trying to protect a rare plant [goldenseal] when its wild stock is used widely in pharmacies and herbal stores as an ingredient in various medicinal products," U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ecologists Julie Concannon and Tom DeMeo wrote in 1997. Goldenseal, a relative of the buttercup, is, they say, second only to ginseng in commercial importance in the North American medicinal plant trade and is imperiled in 17 states.

Goldenseal and American ginseng have become so hot that they number alongside rare reptiles and birds in being tightly regulated in international trade. Ohio's Ginseng Management Program netted about 20 arrests two summers ago for people in two counties improperly picking the wild American plant without the proper permits. Prosecution is difficult to boot. "In the woods, suspects tend to run and can easily pitch their roots anywhere," reports the United Plant Savers Newsletter.

Poaching is always a possibility. Rarer species of echinacea have frequently been sold under the trade name "Kansas Snakeroot." and although two species of echinacea are federally listed as endangered, poaching is hard to enforce--"unless collectors are caught in the act," contends Jennie Wood Sheldon in her book Medicinal Plants: Can Utilization and Conservation Coexist?.

Yet, most wild herbs are picked legally, and some coveted wild ginseng is plucked from federal property, such as Indiana's Hoosier National Forest. There, permits to harvest ginseng more than doubled from 176 to 519 between 1993 and 1996, according to a 1998 report by TRAFFIC North America, a nonprofit group that monitors trade in protected species.

Kentucky is at the heart of the wild ginseng range, and a rural tradition of passing down techniques from generation to generation has helped the state consistently rank at the top of U.S. production, with 14.8 metric tons pulled up in 1996 alone.

Digging isn't for the wealthy: Most of the nation's ginseng diggers rely on welfare, trapping animals for fur, or selling aluminum and other scrap as their main income, a 1994 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service study found. And harvesting is an accepted tradition in some places. In West Virginia, one of the nation's top three ginseng states, more than 20,000 households are thought to pick the popular root.

It's the gold-rush-minded newcomers, more than the old-time pickers, who trouble some conservationists. Take the case of trillium, a wildflower thought to fight tumors. Pickers may fail to distinguish between common versions and two federally endangered species. That "could devastate the few remaining populations of Relict and Persistent trillium," notes The Nature Conservancy.

Consider the propaganda that beckons the uninitiated. "Make Extra Money. Northern Plains Echinacea Dist. Co. is paying premium prices for wild Echinacea Angustifolia ROOT, NOW!" reads an ad in North Dakota's Williston Shopper. "Just grab a shovel, start digging, and make some money!" But watch out, they're going fast. CONTACT: Indigenous Environmental Network, PO Box 485, Bemidji, MN 56619/[phone]; National Center for the Preservation of Medicinal Herbs, 33560 Beech Grove Road. Rutland, OH 45775/[phone].

RELATED ARTICLE: 10 Tenous Plants

African Violet

Location: Kenya and Tanzania

Claim to Fame: Common, fuzzy-blooming houseplant.

Problem: Saving the highly-threatened wild versions requires establishing protected forests and conserving them the Noah's Ark way. That is, by taking a few to grow in protective gardens.

Coral Plant

Location: Chile

Claim to Fame: The Mapuche Indians of mountainous central Chile weave baskets from the pliable stems of the plant, found only in their local forests.

Problem: Only a few populations of the plant remain due to encroaching deforestation by commercial loggers and farmers. Botanists are saving selected plants by moving them to Britain.

Wild Coffee

Location: Mascarene Islands

Claim to Fame: Locals believe it treats everything from venereal disease to hangovers, through claims are unproven.

Problem: Only one wild plant remains. It's on the side of the road on an Indian Ocean island called Rodrigues and is protected by four fences. Yet, locals looking for a quick cure continually manage to snip cuttings from it. While she has taken two small cuttings herself to grow the one successful protected coffee plant under study, Switzerland-based World Conversation Union botanist Wendy Strahm says, "Whether this is saving the species is very debatable," as each succeeding plant will have identical genes.

Nightblooming Cereus Cactus

Location: Arizona

Claim to Fame: Its roots may have value in controlling diabetes.

Problem: This fragrant cactus relies on moths for pollination. But because farmers kill moths to protect their crops, fewer than 150 plants likely remain.

Scrub Plum

Location: Florida

Claim to Fame: It grows on and land, and so may unlock the secrets to raising marketable plums under inhospitable conditions.

Problem: Development. It's found only on the Lake Wales Ridge in an untouristy, poorer section of central Florida that's undergoing rapid change.

Prunus Africana

Location: The mountains of Madagascar and Africa

Claim to Flame: Bark extracts are used to treat prostate conditions worldwide.

Problem: As many as 4,900 tons of bark from these wild trees have been exported annually to Europe for medicinal use. The plant is now limited to rapidly shrinking "islands" in mountain forests.

Slender Oak

Location: Texas

Claim to Fame: Down to one isolated population.

Problem: A nearby campground and occasional drought threaten, this tree, found only in riparian oak woodland in the Chisos Mountains.

Clermontia Peleana

Location: Hawaii

Claim to Fame: Only a few remain on the rainforest slopes of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea.

Problem: Illegally grown marijuana (not to mention wilds pigs and rats) damage its habitat.

Cambuci

Location: Brazil's Atlantic Coastal forest

Claim to Fame: Locals traditionally turn the sour, lemony fruit into jam, jelly and liquers, and use it to fight fever.

Problem: Although it shares its name with a neighborhood in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the tree is almost extinct near that megalopolis, with only a smattering of cultivated trees found in Brazilian parks and gardens. In all, two-fifths of the species "are possibly versity botanist Leslie R. Landrum.

Lundy Cabbage

Location: Lundy Island in Britain's Bristol Channel

Claim to Fame: So few exist that researchers are able to photographically monitor every plant in the wild.

Problem: Rhododendron may seem like a lovely landscape plant in other contexts, but it has invaded so much of the cabbage's turf that rock climbers have resorted to scaling down cliffs to cut back the pesky greenery. The rare cabbage grows only on the genetically-isolated, three-mile-long island. -- S. D.

SALLY DENEEN is a freelance writer based in Fort Lauderdale, FL; TRACEY C. REMBERT is managing editor of E.3