NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/902203
46 NEBRASKAland • NOVEMBER 2017 I n July of 2016, Mike Bullerman, Prairie Plains Resource Institute ecologist, called me: "The sneezeweeds at Fertig Prairie look different and they are blooming way too early," he said. "Are there two sneezeweed species in the state?" "No, we just have common sneezeweed," I responded. "How are the Fertig plants different?" He described plants shorter than common sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) with purple-centered flower-heads, not yellow. Most peculiarly, the plants were blooming in mid-July, well before the late-August bloom period of common sneezeweed, a widespread species in Nebraska growing in wet meadows and shallow marshes. I suggested that he photograph the plant next time at Fertig, a 45-acre, Wachiska Audubon Society-owned Platte River wet meadow in Colfax County. So he did. The photo and a quick check of Steyermark's Flora of Missouri identified the plant as purple-headed sneezeweed (H. flexuosum), a species never before recorded for our state and whose nearest known population is near Kansas City, Missouri, more than 250 miles from Fertig Prairie. This species is widespread over the eastern United States growing in similar habitats as common sneezeweed, but unlike its close relative, it does not range out onto the dry Plains. This past July, Bullerman and I visited Fertig. Expecting only a few plants, I was surprised by the thousands of purple-headed sneezeweeds that bloomed among the bluestem and cordgrass. Sneezeweeds contain bitter and potentially toxic lactones and are avoided by livestock, allowing them to occasionally proliferate in overgrazed pastures. This, however, was no overgrazed pasture, but a quality hay meadow with lanceleaf blazing star, Indian-plantain and other disturbance- sensitive plants. Wachiska Audubon only recently purchased the meadow from the Fertig family under whose care this rich flora survived. To document its occurrence, we collected and pressed several purple- headed sneezeweed specimens for deposit at the University of Nebraska's Bessey Herbarium. The Fertig sneezeweeds ranged from a foot to over 2 feet tall and had fibrous roots that reached only shallowly into the loamy sand soil. The lance-shaped, up to 4-inch-long leaves tapered at their base to narrow wings that extended down the stem. The wedged-shaped, yellow ray flowers, which ringed the flower-heads' outer edge, had three-lobed tips. This latter feature and the "winged stems" distinguish sneezeweeds from "look- alike" members of the aster family, such as sunflowers and coneflowers. Origins of the Fertig Sneezeweeds For nearly 18 years, while seed collecting for prairie restorations, Bullerman has hiked the wet meadow complex that survives in the Platte Purple-headed Sneezeweed A lone population on the lower Platte Story and photos by Gerry Steinauer, Botanist Nebraska's only known population of purple-headed sneezeweed was recently discovered at the Fertig Prairie in Colfax County.