Issue Date: June 15, 2003

NATURE

The people who save precious wildflowers

From individual seedlings to entire species, these conservation groups come to the rescue.

By Jane Louise Boursaw

With the roar of bulldozers behind her, Donna Bolzman frantically shoveled a clump of dainty yellow flowers into a wheelbarrow, hauled it to a waiting pickup truck, then raced back to dig some more. She and other members of Citizens for Conservation in suburban Chicago were on a mission: to rescue a field of yellow star grass, which is native to Illinois but dwindling because of development, and transport the plants safely to Grigsby Prairie, the group's wildflower sanctuary. But the heavy equipment was drawing closer, and the plant-diggers were running out of time.

"We knew we were under the wire," Bolzman says. "We knew they intended to do a lot of earth-moving that day, and they weren't going to stop for anything."

There are at least 40 wildflower rescue groups across the nation, with thousands of volunteers tramping onto development sites armed with shovels, trowels and wheelbarrows to save rare and endangered plants. With Indiana Jones-like fervor, they often rescue plants with the bulldozers nipping at their heels.

When Citizens for Conservation co-chairmen Bob LeFevre and Tom Vanderpoel first got the call about a possible yellow star grass site near their Barrington, Ill., office, they drove out to investigate. Not only did they discover the tiny yellow flowers, but they also found an army of heavy equipment standing ready to clear the site.

LeFevre and Vanderpoel raced back to the conservation office, hastily gathered a group together and returned to the site. The rescue party managed to dig about 75 "plugs" of the precious plants. Had they arrived just an hour later, those flowers would have been lost forever. "Talk about snatching a prize from the jaws of destruction!" exclaims volunteer Waid Vanderpoel, Tom's father. "Who says conservation work isn't exciting?"

Patty Shea recalls a similar rescue by the Cranbrook Gardens Wildflower Rescue Committee in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She received a call from someone claiming to have found a large colony of yellow lady-slippers, an endangered wildflower that's often the victim of poaching. But the call couldn't have come at a worse time. "We were in the middle of our plant sale at Cranbrook, and it was hectic," Shea says. "Of course, we were also suspicious, because people call all the time claiming to have found rare plants, and often they turn out to be nothing. But we sent somebody down there, and they came tearing back and said they really were lady-slippers -- hundreds of them!"

Shea quickly assembled a rescue group; they managed to save about 500 of the delicate flowers before the bulldozers rolled in. "We got every one we could, and we've never found that species again," she says. "And it was a place you'd never think to look for them. It was kind of scruffy -- not a good deciduous woods, where they usually grow."

Shea now heads up the Leelanau Conservancy Wildflower Rescue in Leland, Mich. Recently, the group was digging blue cohosh and baneberry when suddenly they heard the roar of machinery headed their way. "We looked up, and these giant machines were coming over the top of the hill, and trees were falling all over the place," Shea says. "Of course, once they're in there, they can't stop. But they usually cooperate with our mission, and we respect their jobs."

Then there are the groups whose goal is to save not just wildflowers, but entire species of plants, from extinction. Such is the case with the New England Wild Flower Society in Framingham, Mass.

"If you can save a plant here and there, it's great, but we're more interested in saving some of the endangered species that within a very short time are going to disappear," says marketing director Debra Strick. "In New England alone, there are about 2,000 different species, and more than 200 of them are listed as rare or endangered."

Their efforts helped save the Robbins' cinquefoil, a small alpine plant found only in White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire and Maine. Working in conjunction with the USDA Forest Service, the Appalachian Mountain Club and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the group recovered enough of the plant for it to be taken off the federal endangered species list last August.

The NEWFS' role was to grow and propagate the plants from seeds collected by the Appalachian Mountain Club, then transplant them into the rocky, barren terrain on the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. The group hiked miles up the mountain, braving frigid temperatures and 60 mph winds, but for NEWFS conservation director Bill Brumback, it was well worth it. "It shows that we can have an effect and recover these plants," he says. "That's a pretty big deal."

Jane Louise Boursaw, a writer in Traverse City, Mich., last wrote about cloning America's most historic trees.