Expert says it's best to leave princess pine alone
Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, December 15, 2007
These plants aren't pines. They belong to a group of plants called clubmosses that have long, interconnected stems and erect leaves -- the green, piny plants we see growing above the ground.
They're not endangered, but Les Mehrhoff, a botanist at the University of Connecticut, said they are a very slow-growing species. If you harvest them for wreaths, he said, you can devastate a grove without meaning to.
"You can see big stands getting winnowed down so fast," he said.
So Mehrhoff suggests people find other highly suitable and much faster-growing plants to use for Yuletide decorations.
"I know everyone is going green," he said. "But picking princess pine is, to me, moving in the wrong direction. So why do it?"