While I don't disagree that it is wrong to dig plants from the wild, I do wonder if dire warnings against doing so prevents people from actively helping to preserve rare species. I live on the edge of a large city where invasive honeysuckle, and ivy and periwinkle gone wild are threatening the rarer natives, like trillium, mayapples, phlox and bluebells on private property. Large tracts of land marked for subdivisions, shopping malls and the likes are insuring destruction and extinction of some species.

It seems to me that along with the admonition not to dig in the wild, it would be doing a great service to encourage people to rescue these rare wildflowers in an ethical manner.

It is not wrong to approach a land owner whose woodlands are being invaded, or who has acquired property for development, and ask permission to dig up these precious plants and relocate them to a safe place where they will thrive and multiply. I've done this on more than one occasion and with the owners permission I dig and replant on my own property.

Left alone, these beauties spread out by roots much more quickly than those sewn in a nursery from seeds. And while it takes several years, they self sow as well. I share these plants freely with friends, and although it's not perfect, it is a practical way to preserve these species for future generations.

And it also seems to me it would not be wrong to sell these fully developed rescued plants commercially at reasonable prices. I know people who do. So why assume that a reasonably priced wildflower was stolen? What happens to the beautiful specimens that no one buys for fear they were gotten by illegal means? Is their fate any different from those that are plowed under by bulldozers or smothered by invasive ground covers?

For the sake of discussion, what say you?