(a) Except as provided in a permit issued under this subpart, all of the provisions of §17.61 shall apply to threatened species of plants that were added to the List of Endangered and Threatened Plants in §17.12(h) on or prior to September 26, 2019, with the following exception: Seeds of cultivated specimens of species treated as threatened shall be exempt from all the provisions of §17.61, provided that a statement that the seeds are of “cultivated origin” accompanies the seeds or their container during the course of any activity otherwise subject to the regulations in this subpart.

(b) In addition to any provisions of this part, any employee or agent of the Service or of a State conservation agency that is operating a conservation program pursuant to the terms of a cooperative agreement with the Service in accordance with section 6(c) of the Act, who is designated by that agency for such purposes, may, when acting in the course of official duties, remove and reduce to possession from areas under Federal jurisdiction those threatened species of plants that are covered by an approved cooperative agreement to carry out conservation programs.

(c) Whenever a species-specific rule in §§17.73 through 17.78 applies to a threatened species, the species-specific rule will contain all the applicable prohibitions and exceptions.

[84 FR 44760, Aug. 27, 2019]