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Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia
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Item Title
Randy's Recycling, Peytona, WV. [Photo]
Author/Creator
Photographer: Eiler, Lyntha Scott
Created/Published
October 26, 1995
Notes
People who harvest wild botanicals from the woods can sell their wares to local brokers like Randy Halstead, the proprietor of Randy's Recycling in Peytona, West Virginia. Halstead annually brokers hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of wild herbs (leaves, bark, and roots) from the mountains, including bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictoides), ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius), wild ginger (Asarum canadense), virginia snakeroot (Eupatorium rugosum?), indian turnip (Arisaema triphyllum), sassafrass (Sassafras albidum), sumac (Rhus vernix?) , witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana), and wild yam (Dioscorea villosa). Halstead also recycles non-ferrous scrap metals, including aluminum, copper, and brass. But the bulk of his income is generated by ginseng (Panax quinquefolia). As a buyer of ginseng, Halstead can tell at a glance whether the roots are wild ginseng (worth hundreds of dollars a pound, dried), or "tame seng" (cultivated and worth around $30 per pound at the time of the interview). He can also tell from the shape of the root which counties in West Virginia the root came from, because soil differences affect the root's ability to grow, causing some to be elongated, others to be "bulby," as Halstead put it. The prized "stress rings" on a root are produced through soil density, which wrinkles the root's outer membrane.
Subjects
Fall
October
Gathering (commercial use)
Commercial gathering
Ginseng (Panax quinquefolia)
Biodiversity
Photo
Ethnography
Photographs
Randy's Recycling
Peytona, WV
Object Type
Medium
35 mm Color Slide
Language
English
Call Number
CRF-LE-C029-02
Part of
The Coal River Folklife Collection (AFC 1999/008)
Repository
Library of Congress, Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
Digital ID
afccmns lec02902
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afccmns.lec02902