On December 9, Shantou Customs District’s Plant Quarantine Lab identified 16 live seedlings to be the plant of Adenium obesum, also known as “Desert Rose”, which were earlier seized at the postal entry of Chaoshan Airport Customs House. Now, these seedlings are detained by the Customs for investigation.

Five days ago, in the postal control, the Airport Customs intercepted 16 live seedlings in a parcel from Malaysia, each of them packed by newspaper and accompanied by some soil around the root. Through professional identification, all the seedlings belong to “Desert Rose”, an overall toxic plant. Without being quarantined, the seedlings and accompanying soil were risky of carrying pathogens and pests and therefore must be prohibited from entry.

Customs reminder: As flowers, seedlings and other reproductive plant materials are listed in the “Catalogue of Animals, Plants and Their Products Prohibited from being Carried and Posted into China”, their entry must be on the strength of the “Quarantine Approval for Import Seeds, Seedlings and Nursery Stock” issued by China’s Agricultural and Forestry Administrations of the provincial level or higher, along with the Phytosanitary Certificate issued by the exporting authorities.