COMMUNITY: Finding the elusive Pasque flower

Editor's note: Rick Hollis of rural North Liberty is past president and newsletter editor for the Iowa City Bird Club.

By Rick Hollis, community contributor

Aldo Leopold said 'the chance to find a Pasque flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.”

I had never seen one and since that day, long ago when I first read Leopold's words, I have wanted to see a Pasque flower. My chances were not good in the east, but when I moved to Iowa, the possibilities grew. That. however, was balanced by the ever increasing broadening of our cities and the increasing amounts of 'marginal” land being cropped.

Several weeks ago, Larry Gullett posted a photo of a Pasque flower on Facebook. Gullett is the director of the Johnson County Conservation Board and formerly held the same position for Jones County.

I asked Gullett where he saw the Pasque flower and he offered to show me.

One recent Friday afternoon, Gullett and I drove up to a small prairie in Jones County. Prairies, during the time we visited, are pretty dull. There are small bits of green and purple green pigmented fresh growth, but mostly all you see are the tans of prairie grasses and grays, browns and whites of last year's flowering plants.

We did see numerous Pasque flowers, however, in all stages of growth. Some were perhaps a bit past, many were at their peak and more were just coming up.

Pasque flowers are the earliest of our prairie flowers to bloom and are only found in certain kinds of prairie remnants. As far east and south as we are in Iowa, they are rarely found.

This prairie consists of a pretty remarkable 80 acres, which is now in public hands.

Driving past it, many people might wonder why it was not full of cattle or hogs like the 80 acres next to it. This land survived the pioneers because it was too rocky and what soil there, was sandy and shallow. It made a lovely sight for a house and a few cattle could graze here. Once in more recent times, when corn prices were high, someone tried to grow corn but the shallow sand held little moisture and by summer's end the crop had withered and burned.

It has been grazed lightly, but the soil is just too thin to support many cattle and the emergent bedrock serves to further protect the plants.

Closer yet to the present some wise, forward-thinking individuals, Dr. Ray Hamilton and Phyliss Tapken, purchased the land to protect it forever. Through the help of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation and several grant programs, Jones County protected it forever for all to enjoy.