NOVEMBER 2017 • NEBRASKAland 49
Purple-headed sneezeweed is abundant in portions of the Fertig Prairie, a 45-acre, Platte River valley wet meadow.
were abundant in the region. Could a
young bull elk, for example, forced
from its home range – say in northern
Missouri – by rival males, have carried
sneezeweed seed, stowed deep in its fur
or undigested in its gut, to the Platte
valley? Conceivably, one spring morning
long ago, a Sandhill crane rose from its
meadow roost far to the southeast with
sneezeweed seed mud-caked to its scaly
toes, its destination the lower Platte.
Humans are also known transporters
of seed. For example, a recent study
of visitors to Antarctica, whose
shoes, clothes and gear were vacuum-
searched, found that nearly all of
them unknowingly carried seeds of
non-native plants to the continent.
Likewise, westward trudging settlers on
the Mormon Trail, which passed near
the Fertig Prairie, may have carried
sneezeweed seed in mud plastered
beneath their wagons or trapped in the
laces of their well-worn boots.
The name "sneezeweed" originates
from Native Americans' use of the
plant's dried flower heads as a snuff
to induce sneezing to cure headaches,
colds and blocked sinuses. Some tribes
used the snuff in a similar manner to
aid in the expulsion of the afterbirth.
One can imagine the Pawnees, who
occupied the lower Platte valley
in historic times, trading with the
neighboring Otoe Tribe, whose range
dipped into northwestern Missouri,
for purple-headed sneezeweed snuff.
Composed of dried flowers, the snuff
conceivably contained viable seeds,
and its ultimate post-sneeze destination
would be the ground and germination.
A genetic study might solve the
mystery of the Fertig sneezeweeds: Are
they relicts of an ancient, widespread
population in eastern Nebraska or did
they establish more recently via seed? I
lean toward the former
theory, but you
can ponder your own ideas. ■
