Heads up for US based importers of seed.
William Aley (Sun, 27 Jan 2008 09:22:54 PST)

Just a heads us, USDA APHIS implemented a new policy last year that
many may find useful.
The program is for shipping internationally into the USA small lots of
seed.
Small lots - less than 50 seed of any labeled species.
The permit is good for three years and allows the importer to by pass
the phytosanitary certificate requirement.

The permit may not be useful to everyone, but if your looking to have
someone ship you small packets of seed, usually the cost of a
phytosanitary certificate makes that more involved than dropping
packets in the post, and if DHS finds propagative plant material
without a phytosanitary certificate they destroy and inform the sender
after the fact. Not too helpful if you can only get a tiny amount of
seed a year.

Check it out and see if this program may work for you.
When you apply for the permit, the permit writer can usually turn the
permit application around between 5 to 10 days depending on the
backlog of other permit requests (fist in first out policy).

http://aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/…

also http://theseedsite.co.uk/aphis.html

Happy collecting,

Bill,
Silver Spring, MD