The History, Culture, and Conservation of At-Risk Native Forest Botanicals in Southwest Virginia

Shannon Elizabeth Bell, Professor of Sociology, Virginia Tech 

Victoria Persinger Ferguson, Enrolled Citizen of the Monacan Indian Nation and Program Director for the Solitude/Fraction Site, Virginia Tech

As one of the most biodiverse regions in North America, the temperate forests of the Appalachian Mountains are home to a vast number of understory herbs and forest foods that have helped sustain societies for thousands of years, dating to well before European contact. American ginseng, goldenseal, black cohosh, bloodroot, ramps, mayapple, running cedar, and pipsissewa are just a few of the woodland herbs that have been used as medicine and food by the peoples who have stewarded the forests of Southwest Virginia and the greater Appalachian region for millennia.

Many of these forest botanicals have been identified by the United Plant Savers as species of special concern due to their declining populations. One of the greatest threats to these herbs is habitat destruction. Mountaintop removal coal mining, logging, oil and gas drilling, urbanization, vacation home development, and the conversion of hardwoods into pine plantations have all served to destroy prime habitat for Appalachian woodland botanicals (Kruger 2018). At the same time that the habitat for these plants has been declining, the demand for Appalachian forest-grown medicinal herbs and niche foods has continued to rise domestically and internationally. Many woodland botanicals grow very slowly and can take five to ten years to reach maturity; thus, these plant populations are particularly vulnerable to overharvesting. Through planting seeds and propagating rootstock, Southwest Virginia residents living in wooded areas can play an important role in conservation efforts for these imperiled species.

A Brief History of Woodland Botanicals in Appalachia

Indigenous peoples have traditionally engaged in sustainable harvesting practices that have ensured the long-term survival of forest herbs. Only taking one plant for every three that are found, never digging a ginseng plant until the seeds have matured, and only harvesting one leaf of a ramp plant while leaving the root bulb in the ground are all examples of the Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge that was cultivated in the Appalachian forests over thousands of years. The locations of wild stands of medicinal plants, the knowledge of how to tend and ensure the long-term health of those wild stands, and the processes involved in using herbs for medicine constitute a knowledge base that has been passed from one generation to the next. The continued use of these plant species today by tribal members maintains this knowledge through practice.

It was not until the arrival of European settlers that Appalachian forest herbs began to be commodified. Settlers learned of the healing attributes of Appalachian medicinal plants from Indigenous peoples and soon sought to incorporate these herbs into international trade. Perhaps the most iconic of these species—American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius)—has been exported from Appalachia to China since the late-1700s (Chittum et al. 2019). Ginseng quickly became a central part of the livelihoods of settlers in rural Appalachia. As historian Luke Manget describes in his book Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia, from the late-1700s through the mid-1800s, “hunting ginseng became deeply woven into the fabric of rural life throughout the southern mountains” and was one of the primary media of exchange at country stores. Ginseng was especially important for land-poor farmers, who exchanged the root for the supplies their families needed to make ends meet. It was so important to the frontier economy, in fact, that by 1840, “ginseng replaced skins and furs in Appalachian states as the most valuable forest product” (Manget 2022, 50).

Ginseng is but one of a vast number of medicinal forest herbs native to the Appalachian Mountains. As Manget (2022) has shown, during the Civil War, Western North Carolina became the center of the botanical drug industry, and in the decades that followed, the importance of medicinal root digging and herb gathering to the economies of mountain communities grew throughout Central Appalachia, including in Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, and East Tennessee.

Approximately fifty percent of the medicinal herbs presently sold in the global supply chain are native to the Appalachian Mountains (Greenfield and Davis 2003), and Central Appalachia remains the core of what is known colloquially as the “root and herb trade” (Kruger 2018). However, as noted above, many of the most popular Appalachian forest botanicals—most of which are harvested from the wild—are imperiled.

What Can You Do to Help Regenerate At-Risk Forest Botanicals in Southwest Virginia?

The introduction of non-native plant species—both through intentional landscaping and through the unintentional spread of invasive species into woodlands—further threatens wild populations of native forest herbs. By removing exotic plant species from wooded areas in our neighborhoods and parks and by replanting those areas with rootstock and seeds from native forest herbs, even a small patch of woods can become a food and medicine forest over time, while simultaneously aiding in conservation efforts to expand populations of these vulnerable species.

Southwest Virginia Forest Herbs designated “Critical” and “At-Risk” by the United Plant Savers

“Critical” Designation

• Beth root/Trillium (Trillium species)

• False unicorn (Chamaelirium luteum)

• Lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium species)

“At-Risk” Designation

• American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius)

• Black cohosh (Actaea racemosa)

• Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)

• Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis)

• Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum)

• Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)

• Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata)

• Ramps (Allium tricoccum)

• Spikenard (Aralia racemosa)

• Stone root (Collinsonia canadensis)

• True unicorn (Aletris farinosa)

• Virginia snakeroot (Aristolochia serpentaria)

• Wild yam (Dioscorea villosa)

For more information and resources for growing Appalachian forest botanicals, please see:

Appalachian Beginning Forest Farmer Coalition - https://www.appalachianforestfarmers.org/

Appalachian Harvest Herb Hub: https://www.asdevelop.org/programs-resources/herbhub/

United Plant Savers - https://unitedplantsavers.org/

References:

Chittum, Holly K., Eric P. Burkhart, John F. Munsell, and Steven D. Kruger. 2019. “Investing in Forests and Communities: A Pathway to a Sustainable Supply of Forest Herbs in the Eastern United States.” HerbalGram. 124: 60-77.

Greenfield, J.; Davis, J.M. 2003. Collection to Commerce: Western North Carolina Non-Timber Forest Products and Their Markets; Report for the Department of Horticultural Science; North Carolina State University: Raleigh, NC, USA.

Kruger, Steven. 2018. Measuring Medicinal Nontimber Forest Product Output in Eastern Deciduous Forests. Ph.D. Dissertation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia.

Manget, Luke. 2022. Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.