LeslieS,
Your homepage says that you've been around here since 2001. If that's the case you know that we go over this every Spring. CHEAP, BAREROOT NATIVES ARE WILD-COLLECTED.
It's no coincidence that Lowes and Botanical Wonders are both based in N. Carolina. The display is marked "Grown from Cultivated Stock" which is blatantly fraudulent. NC Dept of Agriculture is complicit because they look the other way.
What a coincidence that all the species happen to be NC and Tenn natives. What a coincidence that they happen to be bareroot and dirt cheap.
There was a thread last year where someone offered to put this issue on the agenda at the Cullowee Conference in NC. If the laundering of native plants is ever going to stop it will have to be addressed within NC. Depts of Ag in MD & VA will say that the collection is not occuring in their state so its not our concern, but I'm prepared to argue that it is a fraudulent sale.
Sam

Sam - thank you for posting this information. I have been around here since 2002 and was unaware of this issue.

It seems like it would be really time consuming and thus expensive to wild-collect plants in the quantity that Lowes sells things.