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Butterfly Milkweed
Asclepias tuberosa
An extremely hardy, long-lived
perennial native to North America. The magnificent bright red-orange flowers are
concentrated in compact clusters at the top of branching stems. The flowers produce a
large quantity of nectar which attracts butterflies throughout the growing season. The
plant grows to two feet tall, flowers in June into July and produces a very deep taproot
making transplanting difficult. The stem, when broken, does not produce the milky white
sap characteristic of this plant family.
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A few miles west of Schuyler, there is a little plot of land. It
is only about 43 acres total, but it contains a wealth of biodiversity. The prairie
here is in itself unique, because in the 43 acres the ecosystems change from wet lowland
area to tallgrass prairie, and everything in between. The land has never been broken
by a plow, and still contains the biodiversity that it contained long ago. A branch
of the Mormon trail goes through the ridge in the middle of the meadow. The land to the
north of it was homesteaded in the 1870s, but the prairie itself was left alone. The
Fertig family moved to Nebraska in 1880. They first settled in Albion but soon moved to
the Richland area and have been farming 160 acres there since 1918. My grandfather, Don Schmidt, rented the
plot of land from the Fertig family for about 30 years, while he was farming in the
area. He noticed that the meadow contained many flowers that he couldn’t find
anywhere else. He realized that the prairie was something special, and he took great
care to protect the plants that grew there. He hayed the higher areas of the prairie
only once a year to ensure that the native species would return. About 4 years ago,
at the time when he was getting ready to retire, he and my dad, Dan Schmidt, decided that
they didn’t want the diversity of the prairie to be ruined. Grandpa was worried
that a new renter would start haying it twice a year, or spray it for weeds, which would
kill the native forbs that grew up over the summer. The Fertig Family also wanted
the biodiversity to be preserved, and Ruth Fertig and her children did everything that
they could to make sure that the new renters didn’t harm the prairie.
There still needed to be a more
permanent solution for protecting the meadow, however, as it was still in danger of
ill-treatment by the new renters. In 1996 Brett Ratcliffe and Mary Liz Jameson,
entomologists from the University of Nebraska State Museum and friends of my dad’s,
came out to look at the prairie. They said that it had more diversity than the
9-Mile Prairie near Lincoln, and that it ought to be preserved. A few local people
took interest in our prairie project, also. One of them was Steve Heinesh, the head
of the Biology department at Central Community College in Columbus. Another was Mike
Gutzmer, who works in the natural resources division of NPPD.
They contacted various
organizations, including the University of Nebraska, the Audubon Society, the Nature
Conservancy, and Ducks Unlimited to try to get funds for preserving the meadow.
These organizations all sent out people to look the prairie over, but none would fund
it. The main reason was that it was just too small. Finally, the Wachiska
Audubon Society of Lincoln decided that the prairie project was worth funding, and bought
an easement to the prairie using money from the Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund
(Nebraska Lottery Money). This would finally ensure that the prairie would be
preserved.
The Ag Department at Schuyler
Central High School (under the direction of Tom Wheeldon) and the Central Community
College in Columbus (under the direction of Steve Heinish) were invited to use the prairie
for research. Both took up the cause, and SCHS started a herbarium of the plants in
the prairie and the college started using it as a learning lab for its Botany and
Conservation students. The college and the high school are now in a partnership,
with the college bringing out botany students to mentor high school students while both
study the prairie. The Schuyler FFA chapter is also getting involved in preserving
the meadow by helping with surveys of the plants and collecting specimens. This
prairie is becoming a project of great interest for the whole community.
Excerpt from an essay by Katie
Schmidt,"The Tallgrass Prairie" 2000. |
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Oxen heave on
their yokes as the creaking wagon trundles through the tall grass. Ruts cross the land,
honed by the weight of countless westward travelers. Under the canvas cover the air
steams, wilting the women's starched dresses. Cooking pots clang together as an abrupt
jerk shudders through the wooden frame. Peering out into the shimmering sunlight, a small
boy perches on the back of the wagon. He shades his eyes against the glare, gazing back
east at the wood and canvas ships sailing on the sea of grass. Writhing and rippling like
a painted canvas in a breeze, the rising heat distorts the harsh shapes of the wagons into
the comforting folds of a child's dream. The sky beyond is as blue as sapphire,
unblemished by even a single wispy cloud. Dappling its banks with jeweled laughter,
the meandering stream on the right glimmers and leaps in the sunlight as it rounds a bend.
Rabbits rise from the grass, amused by the procession of wagons. Their mottled fur becomes
one with the landscape as they bound away in search of food. In the distance,
buffalo quietly contemplate the wagon train, then slowly return to their grazing.
Musings by Katie
Schmidt
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