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The United Plant Savers (UpS) is a
nonprofit, grassroots organization that was founded in 1994. Its
mission is “to protect native medicinal plants of the United States and Canada
and their native habitat while ensuring an abundant renewable supply of
medicinal plants for generations to come.”1 Construction of the
organization’s new Center for Medicinal Plant Conservation will begin soon. The
center, which will be about 1,600 square feet and open to the public, will sit
at the entrance of the 379-acre UpS Sanctuary in Rutland, Ohio.2,3
The building will serve as a visitor center, and UpS hopes that it will help
attract more visitors to, and ensure the long-term preservation and financial sustainability
of, the sanctuary, which is home to many medicinal plant species native to
Appalachia.2,3
“[This] will be the first public space in the United States to recognize the
historical, cultural, and economic significance of native, and in many cases
endemic, Appalachian medicinal plants,” wrote Sara Katz, president of UpS’ board of directors (email, September
27, 2017). “I believe the center will be the key to making the sanctuary
accessible to visitors, as well as collaborations with individuals and groups
working in the burgeoning field of native medicinal plant conservation.”
Importantly for UpS, the center will be the first climate-controlled building
on the property and will therefore expand the capabilities of the site, since
southern Ohio is typically very humid. It will give the organization a place to
archive information and store artifacts. It will also include the following: a
classroom (which opens to a covered outdoor space) for the organization’s wide variety
of educational programs; a commercial kitchen (which will be open to the
classroom) for use as a teaching apothecary; a library of books about medicinal
plants for use by interns, the community, and visitors; an herbarium cabinet; a
gift shop with locally made herbal products; and an office.2,3
In addition, a museum at the entrance of the building will explore the history
of botanical medicine in the region. “There is a huge wealth of herbal history,
especially among the Eclectics, that relates specifically to southern Ohio and
the Appalachians,” said Susan Leopold, PhD, the executive director of UpS (oral
communication, August 31, 2017). “The Lloyd brothers [John Uri Lloyd, Curtis
Gates Lloyd, and Nelson Ashley Lloyd], for example, were based out of
Cincinnati. There was a whole network of Eclectic schools in the region back in
the late 1800s and early 1900s. So, we want to tell that history of botanical
medicine.”
Eclectic medicine was a branch of American
medicine that sought to reform, instead of attack, the existing medical system
and educate physicians about the use of herbal medicine at a time when
conventional medical practices still made extensive use of mercury,
bloodletting, and purging, which are dangerous. Eclectic physicians used
whatever therapies were found to be most beneficial and treated the patient
instead of the pathology. The word “eclectic” derives from the Greek eklego, meaning “to choose from.”4,5
Leopold hopes the center will serve and engage the local community in a way
that is reminiscent of the Eclectics. “The Eclectics, going back to the Lloyd
brothers, were all about giving back to the community,” she said. “They provided
free medicine to orphanages. They set up preserves [e.g., the Curtis Gates
Lloyd Wildlife Management Area in Kentucky] where they protected old-growth
forests. They were visionaries for their time, and their whole business and
philosophy of working with medicinal plants was all about giving back to the
land and giving back to the people.” (She added that the Lloyd brothers “have
left a legacy with the Lloyd Library [in Cincinnati] that is the hallmark of
the Eclectic American herbal history.”)
She also noted that rural Appalachia is facing many economic challenges, and
this has had a negative impact on some native medicinal plant species. UpS
hopes the new facility will help educate people about how to conserve and avoid
overexploitation of these resources, in the midst of these challenges. As one
example, extensive harvesting of ramps (Allium
tricoccum, Amaryllidaceae) in the area has recently depleted some wild
populations of this plant, which is in the same genus as onion (A. cepa) and garlic (A. sativum), and is used for its flavor
and as a spring tonic. While some ramp harvesters may use sustainable
collection practices, many do not. For this specific plant, UpS encourages harvesters
to take only one leaf per plant and to cultivate the species instead of relying
on wild populations.6 Overall, UpS promotes relationships with
plants that are beneficial to both people and the plants. “I really see this
[center] as a great economic opportunity for the community,” said Leopold,
because it will help demonstrate what an herb-based economy looks like.
The facility will host different events and workshops and will increase the
possibilities of UpS’ internship program. The property also includes a
multipurpose barn, a cabin in the woods, and a yurt where most onsite classes
and lessons are currently held. Some interns have come from around the world,
including from Australia, Canada, Japan, and Nigeria, to participate in UpS’
Medicinal Plant Conservation Certificate Program (MPCCP). In addition, UpS has
a close relationship with Ohio University, which is located about 25 miles
north of Rutland in Athens, Ohio, and the organization hosts interns from the
university’s botany department.
UpS interns learn about medicinal plant identification and how to sustainably
harvest and prepare the plants for medicinal use. In addition, they participate
in greenhouse work, help plant and maintain a vegetable garden, maintain and
improve the sanctuary landscape, and more, with guidance from UpS staff. “We
currently have a pretty strong internship program and feel like this [new
facility] will step it up a notch,” said Leopold.
Most of the new building will be constructed using wood from ash (Fraxinus spp., Oleaceae) trees that grew
on the property but died because of the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle. The
wood was milled at a  local mill and moved to the onsite barn for curing. The
building was designed based on the vernacular of a country store where one
would typically go to buy herbs.2,3 “It is really meant to blend in
with the landscape,” said Leopold. It was also designed to be energy-efficient,
with roof-mounted solar panels.
The center will be built with a $250,000 budget. Through CrowdRise (a crowdfunding platform), UpS raised
$95,000 in donations over a period of four weeks, and it earned $65,000 in
awards and bonuses from the 2017 Earth Day Roadmap Climate Challenge (a
fundraising competition for climate, conservation, environmental, and other
related nonprofit organizations), for a total of $160,000. “I think it says a
lot that we were able to raise this money through a process of engaging
hundreds and hundreds of people,” Leopold said. Some of the biggest
contributors to the crowdfunding campaign (more than $2,000 each) include Herb
Pharm, Mountain Rose Herbs, Rosemary Gladstar, Traditional Medicinals, the Florida
School of Holistic Living, Daniel Gagnon, and Gaia Herbs.
In addition, UpS member and sanctuary steward Shay Clanton donated watercolor paintings
of goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis,
Ranunculaceae), American ginseng (Panax
quinquefolius, Araliaceae), and trillium (Trillium grandiflorum, Melanthiaceae), and limited edition prints
of the paintings will be sold to raise additional funds to build the center.
 The center will be dedicated to revered ethnobotanist James A. Duke, PhD, and his
wife, Peggy, a botanical artist. “It was a consensus among the board to want to
honor Jim and Peggy Duke, because of Jim’s contributions to our knowledge of
medicinal plants and his love for the plants, and because of Peggy’s passion
for merging art and science,” Leopold said. “[Jim] was really supportive of the
United Plant Savers from the get-go.”
Jim Duke wrote: “I am grateful for my many fond memories of trips to Meigs
County, specifically to the UpS Sanctuary…. I am deeply honored that Peggy’s
artwork and my poetry, lyrics, books, and prose will be featured on exhibit at
the new center. I … encourage every plant lover to visit this true treasure and
tribute to native plant conservation” (email, September 28, 2017).
The UpS Sanctuary, most of which is
deciduous forest, is home to an extensive wild population of goldenseal.
Hundreds of other species, including American ginseng, black cohosh (Actaea racemosa, Ranunculaceae), wild
yam (Dioscorea villosa,
Dioscoreaceae), slippery elm (Ulmus rubra,
Ulmaceae), trilliums (Trillium spp.),
false unicorn root (Chamaelirium luteum,
Melanthiaceae), and bloodroot (Sanguinaria
canadensis, Papaveraceae), also grow
at the site. “We also have a prairie, which has pleurisy root [Asclepias tuberosa, Apocynaceae] and echinacea [Echinacea
spp., Asteraceae], and [other
herbaceous flowering plants] as well,” Leopold said. “For the most part, most
of those [medicinal plants] that are typical of Appalachia are found at the
sanctuary.”
According to Rosemary Gladstar, founder of UpS and founding president of its board
of directors, it is uncommon to see natural habitat where the native plants are
not only surviving but thriving. “That is one of the things that is so remarkable
about the sanctuary. For some reason, that particular farm was never poached
(or poached heavily) or clear cut, so the plant communities there are still
intact and are really quite amazing to see” (email, October 6, 2017).
UpS’ herbarium collection includes about 300 specimens, all from the sanctuary.
“It is specific to the sanctuary and we hope that once we have an herbarium
cabinet, then we can continue to add to the herbarium collection,” Leopold
said. She noted that the development of the center comes at a time when many
institutions are discontinuing their botany departments and disposing of their
herbarium specimens. She hopes this effort will help renew interest in
botanical medicine.
The UpS Sanctuary is the center of UpS’ Botanical Sanctuary Network, in which
UpS members designate private land to be used for the conservation of medicinal
and other plants. This network includes sanctuaries throughout the United States
and Canada.7 UpS provides certain benefits for members of the
network (e.g., priority consideration for UpS grants). In addition, the UpS Sanctuary
is part of the Sacred Seeds Sanctuary Network, which is a global network intended
to preserve biodiversity and plant knowledge through living gardens.8
UpS hopes its new facility will encourage other sanctuaries that are both
inside and outside these networks to establish similar centers that celebrate
and help conserve the medicinal plant diversity of their respective regions.
“There is no other center for medicinal plant conservation that I know of,”
Leopold said. “I think we are creating a model that we hope will inspire others
to do similar projects.”
In 2016, UpS was awarded a grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) to develop an interpretive trail that highlights the reclamation of part
of the sanctuary from strip mining.3 Part of the property was strip
mined in the 1960s and has undergone an extensive amount of restoration. “We
are  about to launch what we call the Reclaim Trail, which tells the whole
history of resource extraction,” Leopold said. “Appalachia has been really
plagued by the economics of resource extraction, so this is a real opportunity
to shift that paradigm and have the economic story be about conservation of
these medicinal plants and all the economic benefits that they bring.”
In 2012, UpS placed part of the sanctuary under conservation easement with the Meigs
Soil and Water Conservation District and, in 2016, placed the rest of the
sanctuary under conservation easement with the Appalachian Ohio Alliance. (A
conservation easement is a voluntary, legally binding agreement between a
landowner and a qualified conservation organization or government body that permanently
limits the uses of all or part of a property in exchange for tax savings,
charitable contributions deductions, income tax credits, and lower property
taxes for the landowner.) A parcel of land near the entrance of the property
was excluded from the easements for the development of the new center.
“Ever since we first walked this beautiful earth sanctuary, it has been our
dream to create an educational center that would bring people from all walks of
life, and from around the country, to study and learn about medicinal plants
and, even more importantly, to witness plant conservation in action,” Gladstar
wrote. “There is really no better place in the country for this than the
northern foothills of Appalachia where the UpS Sanctuary is located. It is
truly one of the most plant-rich bioregions of this continent and has some of
the richest concentrations of North American at-risk plants growing there
naturally.”
Leopold thinks the Center for Medicinal Plant Conservation will be a great contribution
to rural tourism. “I think people will be curious and want to come visit us,
and I think in the process they are going to learn a lot,” she said.
—Connor Yearsley
Photo captions, from top to bottom (all images courtesy of United Plant Savers): The front of the forthcoming Center for Medicinal Plant Conservation. Artwork by Philippe Grenade XIV.
Fallen ash trees at the UpS Sanctuary, which will be used to construct the center
Trillium watercolor by Shay Clanton. Limited edition prints of this painting and two others will be sold to raise additional funds to build the center.
Trail map for the Sanctuary Reclaim Trail
References
- Our mission
at UpS. United Plant Savers website. Available at: www.unitedplantsavers.org/about-ups. Accessed
September 25, 2017.
- Building
the Center for Medicinal Plant Conservation. Journal of Medicinal Plant Conservation. Spring 2017:20-21.
- Join
us this Earth Day to become a permanent part of the UpS Botanical Sanctuary.
United Plant Savers website. Available at: www.unitedplantsavers.org/images/pdf/11-1121B-UpS-Earth-Day-Flyer-FINAL.pdf. Accessed
September 25, 2017.
- Pizzorno
JE, Murray MT. Textbook of Natural
Medicine. St. Louis, MO: Churchill Livingstone; 2013.
- Haller
JS Jr. A Profile in Alternative Medicine:
The Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati, 1845-1942. Kent, OH: The Kent
State University Press; 1999.
- Ramps.
United Plant Savers website. Available at: www.unitedplantsavers.org/ramps. Accessed September
25, 2017.
- UpS
Botanical Sanctuary Network: Active Members. Journal of Medicinal Plant Conservation. Spring 2017: 32-33.
- Sacred
Seeds. Journal of Medicinal Plant
Conservation. Spring 2017:38.
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