and yes my inner ecologist is good to have =) and not always such a spoilsport!! i do a lot of foraging and wildcrafting, and i am not shy about getting what i can when i can =) but as i said these guys only have small populations in the few spots i have found them. i like when i run into large healthy patches, so i can take divisions/seeds/fruit/etc guilt trip free =) though its pretty rare that i dig things up, except for a few rare exceptions, or if theres so much my dividing is actually beneficial. some plants tend to crowd themselves out and a bit of dividing is good, gives them more room to spread out. i am not into...some kind of total preservation, hands off, no humans allowed to use the forest...kind of ideaology...anyway, but i do believe that humans can and should have healthy interactions with nature, using what they find, harvesting respectfully.

Pink Lady Slippers Squirrel Corn, dicentra camadensis Dutchmans breeches Umbrella leaf, diphyllea chymosa Panax Quinquifolia, ginseng trillium (not cunneatum) I have blooming trillium cuneatum and see my trade list. Or, let me know what natives you have available. plantbug

TINA asked me to start a new thread since I wanted to make sure that I had captured everyone's emails from my time in hospital. I am now facing complication 2, but my husband has offered to stand in for me, bring and collect everything, and even bring the food. Will everyone please look at my last because there are many things I asked for, but did not receive a response on, and I do not want people to expect we've made an agreement and not get it. Thanks, Lisa

You're probably correct assuming that ants help spread the seeds - I've got extensive areas of both the European and native gingers that have spread this way. Which predominates - in my situation the native ginger has the edge. The weakness of both species is somewhat of an intolerance for hot dry conditions. This fallibility probably helps keep the Euro Ginger from being invasive over the long haul. It probably couldn't colonize the tough sites invasives usually favor.