By Alabama Public Radio
nationwide –
Efforts to add some holiday cheer to your house could be a danger to the state's pine forests.
Agriculture officials are asking shoppers who recently bought any potpourri bags of scented pine cones to take a close look at them. Those pine cones may be infested with a wood-boring beetle. The tiny beetle is a major threat to Alabama's multi-million dollar timber industry. The insects multipy quickly and can infect and kill entire stands of pine trees.
If any infested products are found, officials ask the cones be double-bagged and thrown away.
So far, there have been no reports of the beetle in Alabama, butit has been found in North Carolina, New Jersey, Florida and Massachusetts. The potpourri was sold at major retail stores ... like WalMart, K Mart, Target, and Dollar Tree.