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Fall
1999
[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: FALL 1999.]
Savanna Blazing
Star:
Lost Plant of Lost Ecosystem
By
Judy Mellin
How
many of us have ever tried to use a reference book to find
something when we were very new to the subject? We look
at the object, then at the book, then back at the object
until we are sure we know what we are seeing. So what is
a young scout to do upon finding a plant in the wild that
cannot be identified using any of the standard reference
texts?
On
a fine fall day in 1978, Steve Packard was walking through
the St. Mihiel Woods Forest Preserve in Oak Forest in southern
Cook County, when he encountered a plant that was familiar,
yet different. His Peterson's Field Guide to Wildflowers
seemed to show the plant to be the New England blazing star,
a plant known from Maine and New Jersey all the way west
to central Pennsylvania. Unlike our local blazing stars,
these had flower heads on individual stalks, not attached
to the main stem. As someone then new to the study of plants,
Packard said, "Many of my identifications didn't quite check
out. I did not think much of it. It was just a handsome
plant I'd never seen before."
The
early editions of Floyd Swink's authoritative Plants
of the Chicago Region did not contain this plant, yet
examples of this unusual blazing star kept turning up in
oak savannas, a natural community that itself had nearly
been lost to this region. Eventually plant taxonomist Gerould
Wilhelm and botanist Marlin Bowles, both at the Morton Arboretum
at the time, realized that they had a significant find:
a western relative of Peterson's New England plant, the
savanna blazing star (Liatris scariosa nieuwlandii),
a species that had not been identified for many decades
in the Chicago region, or anywhere in Illinois.
"People
think the flora's well known in this region," said Wilhelm.
"But we're finding surprises like this all the time." The
savanna blazing star was added to Plants of the Chicago
Region and eventually was placed on the Illinois Threatened
Species list.
Historical
research revealed that Samuel Barnum Mead, a frontier doctor,
had mentioned this species as a denizen of the "oak
barrens" of Illinois in an article published in 1846.
Dr. Mead (yes, he was related to the P.T. of circus fame,
but that is a very different story for a very different
venue) was a country doctor who rode in his horse-drawn
carriage to visit patients and to record the plants of the
area.
It
is interesting that this plant was recorded by a doctor.
Blazing stars have a long history of medicinal use among
Native American tribes. The Pawnee boiled the leaves and
rootstock to prepare a decoction for children with diarrhea.
Meskwaki women used it to treat urinary problems. Members
of the Omaha tribe chewed the rootstock and blew the resulting
paste into the nostrils of horses to increase their endurance
in battle.
What
is the species up to today? According to Rich Hyerczyk,
who monitors plants in the Palos area, the savanna blazing
star benefits from disturbance but likes to be left alone.
Does this sound like a contradiction — or like Mae
West meeting Greta Garbo? Hyerczyk explained, "Liatris
scariosa grows best in very poor soil with one of its
associates, poverty oats (Danthonia spicata). After
we burn, we see hundreds of yearlings that sometimes blossom
when they are only six inches tall. As the surrounding plants
such as big bluestem and gray goldenrod grow taller, though,
the plant is shaded out and virtually disappears after two
or three years. But it comes right back when we burn again."
At
this time of year, you may be lucky enough to find it at
several sites in the region — including Cap Sauers
Holdings and Bergman Slough in the Palos area and St. Mihiel
Woods in Oak Forest. Look for it under the branches of the
bur and white oaks and shagbark hickory trees. Its native
bouquet will include nodding wild onion, great Solomon's
seal, golden Alexanders, thimbleweed and meadow parsnip.
It will not be easy to find, but what a find it is!
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