When the authorities nab plant poachers transporting endangered species, what happens to the plants?

So oftentimes we'll receive some plant material and we'll spend a significant amount of time nursing it back to health.

It's Monday, March 25th, and you're listening to Science Friday.

I'm SciFRI producer Shoshana Bucksbaum.

The USDA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service monitor if endangered plant species are illegally being brought into the country.

And when they're discovered, if their home country

doesn't accept them within 30 days, they get rescued. Then where do they go? Iroflato talks with

two botanists from the U.S. Botanic Garden about their plant rescue program. Dr. Susan Pell,

executive director of the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., and Amy Highland

plant curator at the Botanic Garden. Welcome to Science Friday.

Well, thanks so much for having us. We're really excited to have this conversation with you today.

Nice to have you. Tell us what happens when an endangered plant is confiscated? How does it end up at the

U.S. Botanic Garden? Well, we usually start off with a phone call.

When these plants are brought into the country, usually through an airport or other port of entry,

they are confiscated by the USDA. And someone will call us up and say that they have these plants available

and would we be able to either host them while they are awaiting to be sent back

to their home country or to keep them in perpetuity if they cannot be returned to their host country?

So oftentimes we'll receive some plant material and we'll spend a significant amount of time

nursing it back to health and spending some time trying to give

it a proper identification, making sure that it's healthy enough to then be used in other ways

of the Botanic Garden for education or for further conservation purposes. So you'll keep them

there virtually forever then, if no one claims them. Yes, we will. Wow.

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