Dear All: I want to share some information that recently came my way that will impact importations of plants into the US. A last minute addendum to the Agricultural Appropriations bill passed earlier this summer changed the Lacey Act as follows: "basically the Agriculture bill which is now law included new language which amends the Lacey Act to include "any wild member of the plant kingdom, including roots, seeds, parts, and products thereof" and give the Secretary of Agriculture 180 days to come up with procedures for clearances. For animal specimens, the Lacey Act basically means that it is a felony in the USA to import any animals that have been collected illegally under any level of law at their point of origin, and the burden of proving material is legally collected is on the collector and/or the collection in which the material comes to reside. It is among the most pervasive of US laws because of the impact of making foreign law a felony. For insects, it is often hard to prove that their export is not regulated by particular countries, because often no regulatory office has the authority to write a letter saying they don't regulate them, but at the same time, they will tell you in person that they don't care about insects." It appears that we will need a letter from the country of origin in the future stating that the plants, seeds, roots, cuttings, etc. that we import were collected legally. Boyce Tankersley Director of Living Plant Documentation Chicago Botanic Garden 1000 Lake Cook Road Glencoe, IL 60022 tel: 847-835-6841 fax: 847-835-1635 email: btankers@chicagobotanic.org