FORESTRY officials are on alert for wild plant raiders although there have been only a few instances in the area to date.
"We are very lucky we do not live close to a major population centre," Forest Enterprise spokesperson Val Long commented on the news that Britain's bluebells are vanishing at an alarming rate – mostly to be sold for urban gardens.
The problem is most acute in the Home Counties where spectacular spring displays of bluebells are in danger of becoming a sight of the past.
"However, we are keeping a close watch on things. So far as we can see only a few clumps have gone and it is very much a local affair.
"We had a scare a couple of years ago when one of the TV cookery programmes was praising the virtues of going out into the woods and collecting your own mushrooms. We sort of braced ourselves for a bit of an onslaught, but there was no big problem.
"Of course we do not mind people picking mushrooms and fungi for their own use, but I understand there were pickers going out on a commercial scale in some parts of the country. Again, I think this was near larger cities like London."
The idea that plants growing in the wild are "free" is far from the truth, and none should even be picked let alone dug up and taken away.
Conservationists as well as forestry interests are concerned that big business is eyeing up these natural resources as easy pickings to be plundered at will.
However there are a growing number of successful prosecutions including a case of florists who stripped woodland of moss which takes many years to establish itself.