'Sangers' in jail

Out in the highlands of southwestern North Carolina, law and tradition are at odds over an odd root.

The root is that of the native ginseng plant. Ginseng, a protected species, isn't a spectacular wildflower, but its underparts are spectacularly valuable in some quarters. So much so that poachers are digging up the landscape in search of profit. In Bryson City, the Associated Press reports, two men were recently given jail time for ginseng-stealing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Why steal? Look no farther than the reputed $300 a pound or more that Asians and others are willing to pay for dried roots of wild-growing American ginseng.

Right -- this is about sex. Although it has other medicinal uses, ginseng is supposedly a sure-fire aphrodisiac.

Nothing new there. Lucrative lust-fueled foreign markets were a factor in the similarly high prices that once lured the likes of Daniel Boone to dig ginseng roots in Kentucky and carry them on horseback toward the coast for shipment. It's known as hunting sang, and practitioners are often called sangers.

Today, supposedly, some sangers use GPS systems to make their way to prime stashes deep in the woods. According to the Smoky Mountains park's chief ranger, areas that used to sustain stands of wild ginseng have been dug up so much they can't reseed themselves. Extinction of the mountain ginseng is now a possibility.

Let's root for less sang hunting and for a native plant's survival. Especially since the market seems so out of kilter -- haven't the Chinese seen all those Viagra ads?