ABSTRACT
The recognition that active ingredients extracted from native herbs may have potential utility in modern medicine has given new incentive to worldwide efforts to conserve vulnerable populations of wild plant species.50 During the past decade, market demand for Chinese herbs around the world has increased sharply. And these resources have been avidly sought as raw material by drug processors in the East as well as the West. As a result of mass collecting, many natural habitats and the plant communities which they sustain have been decimated and some species are threatened or have become scarce.
