To save plants, activists get into harm’s way

By Dean Fosdick

America’s ever growing bent for new construction means disturbing woodlands and wetlands.

Before the bulldozers arrive, Jane Pausch is there to save the flowers.

She rubs shoulders with poison ivy, works in stifling heat, gets hassled by the local constabulary and even deals with the occasional warning shots from landholders or motorists screaming insults about what they perceive to be plant poaching or trespassing.

“We’ve been fired at and hollered at,” said Pausch, who with her husband, Brad, operates Wildflower Rescue of MN, a commercial venture sanctioned by Minnesota to gather threatened or endangered wildflowers facing habitat destruction.

“It’s not glamorous work.”

Why bother? Plant rescue is an important way to ensure that valued wildflower species survive. There’s also the issue of protecting diversity as invasive plants gain ground with a kudzu-like hold and begin to dominate as America’s woodlands and wetlands become urbanized.

“Many plants are rare because of their unique growing conditions,” said Gerry Moore, director of science for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

“They can’t be easily replicated somewhere else. Many wildflowers fit that category. Yet they’re quickly disappearing due to habitat degradation.”

Pausch specializes in collecting Lady’s Slipper orchids. The Showy Lady’s Slipper, a pink and white varietal, is the Minnesota state flower.

She and her husband have permission to save flowers in any habitat threatened by construction.

“We’d be open to any other kind of (plant threatening) activity but it’s largely a matter of getting permission,” she said.

Many in the field refer to the loss of wildflowers in terms reminiscent of the extinction of the passenger pigeon, the most common bird in North America when the first European settlers arrived. There was no safety in numbers, however.

Valued for their plumage, meat and eggs, they soon were hunted out of existence.

“The extinction of the passenger pigeon and the decline of the American chestnut remind us that fairly abundant, even ubiquitous species can sometimes be quickly lost due to a combination of over-harvesting, disease and loss of habitat,” writes Gary Nabhan in “Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent’s 100 Most Endangered Foods,” out in May from Chelsea Green Publishing.

What was thought to be the world’s last passenger pigeon died at a Cincinnati zoo in 1914.

“You can’t help but think about the passenger pigeon when you look around and see all the building that’s going on,” said Alan Mizeras, coordinator of the Native Plant Rescue Group of Henderson County (North Carolina). “We’re losing a lot of stuff. Huge amounts of flora and fauna are disappearing from the scene. That’s our botanical diversity.”

Mizeras was an environmental monitoring specialist before retiring to the scenic Blue Ridge Mountain country of western North Carolina in 2001.

Along with a small cadre of volunteers, his current project involves transplanting wildflowers taken from a 117-acre parcel on a mountainside near Hendersonville, destined eventually to be the site of 80 freestanding homes.

“This will be our second year working on the property,” Mizeras said in a telephone interview. “Last year, we took out 97 species or a total of 934 plants on that site. Azaleas were the most prominent — 350 or so which is pretty good for a shrub. We also took out quite a lot of Bloodroot, Dwarf crested iris, Mountain bellwort, Lily of the valley, Showy lady-slippers, Christmas ferns, Trillium and a bunch of others.”

Wildflowers are a hardy lot but many varieties don’t take kindly to being transplanted — especially into areas unlike those where they were found.

“Orchids are an example of a group of plants that present a lot of challenges in trying to cultivate them,” the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Moore said. “Terrestrial orchids that grow in the soils require very specific soil and fungi conditions. They can be quite challenging to grow outside of their native habitat.”

Rescue groups are selective about where they transplant the recovered blooms.

“Putting them in a remote site and throwing water at them a couple of times is not going to get the job done,” Mizeras said.

“We place them in public parks or private gardens. We don’t care where they go as long as they survive.”

Mizeras is tickled that the owner of the residential-development-to-be has become so interested in the wildflower recovery effort that he’s gotten involved.

“The developer didn’t know anything about native plants when we started all this last year. But he’s getting into it now and taking some of them out for himself.”