§ 2-18.1-2. Definitions. For the purpose of this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:

(1) "Agent" means any person under the partial or full control of a nursery worker, dealer or other agent, who sells or solicits orders for nursery stock, not from a supply at hand, at a place other than a nursery worker's or a dealer's place of business.

(2) "Certified stock" means plants and plant parts defined as nursery stock which bears, or with regard to which the director has determined to his or her satisfaction that there has been issued by recognized plant regulatory officials, a valid, unexpired certificate attesting that the stock has been inspected and found to be apparently free of injurious insects and plant diseases.

(3) "Collected plants" means plants and plant parts defined as nursery stock, which are dug or otherwise removed from fields, woodlots, or forest lands for sale or distribution which have not been grown under cultivation in a nursery for one year.

(4) "Dealer" means any person, not a grower or an original producer of nursery stock in this state, and who is independent of the control of any nursery worker or other dealer, who sells, offers to sell, solicits orders for or otherwise traffics in nursery stock from a supply at hand or which is obtained from a nursery or another dealer.

(5) "Department" means the department of environmental management of the state of Rhode Island.

(6) "Director" means the director of environmental management of the state of Rhode Island, and his or her authorized agents.

(7) "Hardy" means the ability to withstand heat or cold to the extent of surviving the normal out of door summer and winter temperatures of this state.

(8) "Insect" means invertebrate animals belonging to the arthropod class, Insecta (Hexapoda), and also members of other arthropod classes, mollusca, nematodes, and other invertebrate animals, in any state of development. An insect species shall be considered to be injurious to plants:

(i) When it is known to be capable of causing serious damage to, or decreased value of, the host plant or adjacent plants by reason of feeding, oviposition, production of toxic secretions, or other activities and by the demonstrated capacity to function efficiently as a carrier or reservoir of an agent capable of inciting an injurious plant disease; or

(ii) When the insect has been declared by the director to be a plant pest, or when a quarantine has been established with regard to it by the director, the secretary of agriculture of the United States, or by recognized plant regulatory officials of the state or country into which the host plants are to be shipped.

(9) "Nursery" means any grounds or premises on or in which nursery stock is propagated, grown, or cultivated, or from which nursery stock is collected for sale purposes. The term nursery shall not be construed to mean a dealer's premises or heeling-in grounds on or in which nursery stock is held for purposes other than propagation or growth and neither shall it apply to grounds or premises offering for sale stock which is not a regular commercial activity.

(10) "Nursery stock" means all hardy, deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs, vines and other plants having a persistent woody stem, whether wild or cultivated, and plant parts, for and capable of propagation.

(11) "Nursery worker" means the person who owns, leases, manages, or is in charge of a nursery. All persons engaged in operating a nursery are farmers and are engaged in an agricultural enterprise for all statutory purposes.

(12) "Person" means a corporation, company, society, association, partnership, governmental agency, and any individual or combination of individuals.

(13) "Place of business" means each separate store, stand, sales ground, lot, truck, railway car, or other vehicle or any other place at or from which nursery stock is being sold or offered for sale where one or more sales persons are in attendance.

(14) "Plant disease" means an injurious physiological activity of plants caused by the continued action of a chief causal factor and exhibited through abnormal cellular activity expressed in characteristic conditions, called symptoms, which symptoms are of three (3) types, nocrosis, hyperplasia, and hypoplasia. Plant disease shall be considered to be injurious in nature:

(i) When the symptoms and signs observed on and/or the inciting agent(s), recovered from or demonstrated to be in the plant identify the disease as one that is considered by competent plant pathologists to be capable of causing serious damage to or decreased value of the host plant or of adjacent plants;

(ii) When the symptoms observed, whether incited by animate or inanimate causal factors, and whether or not identified with known plant disease(s) are of a nature and intensity as to reduce the likelihood of surviving normal transplantation or of maintaining growth, vigor, and appearance equal to that of normal nursery grown plants of the same species, age, and size when properly transplanted and cared for; and

(iii) When the incitant or harborer of the disease has been declared by the director to be a plant pest, or when a quarantine has been established with regard to it by the director, the secretary of agriculture of the United States, or by plant regulatory officials of the country or state into which the host plants are to be shipped.

History of Section. (G.L. 1956, § 2-18.1-2, as assigned, P.L. 1962, ch. 132, § 1.)