American Ginseng Tempted Mountain Poachers

American ginseng is so valuable, often fetching hundreds of dollars a pound, that poachers risk jail time to steal roots from the Appalachian Mountains. In Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the trade has pushed rangers and botanists into a long fight to protect the slow-growing plant. Since 1992, National Park Service botanist Janet Rock’s lab has received more than 15,000 illegally harvested ginseng roots from park rangers, then replanted many of them back in the forest.

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