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• • Minnesota Plant Press The Minnesota Native Plant Society Newsletter Volume 25 Number 1 Fall 2005 Monthly meetings Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, 3815 American Blvd. East Bloomington, MN 55425 -1600 952- 854 -5900 6:30 p.m. — Building east door opens 6:30 p.m. — Refreshments, information, Room A 7 – 9 p.m — Program, society business 7:30 p.m. — Building door is locked 9:00 p.m. — Building closes Programs The MNPS meets the first Thursday in October, November, December, February, March, April, May, and June. Check the Web site for more program information. Nov. 3: "Plant Communities of the Mississippi River Gorge," by Karen Schik, ecologist with Friends of the Mississippi River and MNPS board member. Seed Exchange. Labels should include your name, . common and scientific names of plant, seed origin (nursery name if plant was purchased, or city /county location) and habitat (prairie, savanna, wetland, woodland). Dec. 1: "Moonwort Madness, Part II," by Cindy Johnson -Groh, biologist, Gustavus Adolphus College. This is an update of her 1999 program on this interesting Minnesota fern. Feb. 2: To be announced New MNPS Web site www.mnnps.org e -mail: contact @mnnps.org MNPS Listserve Send a message that includes the word "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" and your name in the body of the message to: mn- natpl- request @stolaf. edu Wild lupine has key role in saving endangered Karner blue butterfly Wild lupine, Lupinus perennis, is the only plant eaten by the caterpillars of the endangered Kamer blue butterfly, Lycaeides melissa samuelis. Efforts to preserve the Karner blue are underway in Minnesota, which is at the western edge of the butterfly's traditional range. Today it can be found in two valleys in the Whitewater Wildlife Management Area near Winona. Until the early 1980s, a colony of Kamer blues also existed alongside a gravel road in Cedar Creek Natural History Area in Anoka County. Then the wild lupine was scraped off by a grader during a road improvement project, and the butterflies vanished. The topside of the male Kamer blue is silvery or dark blue with narrow black margins; the female's topside is grayish brown to blue, with irregular bands of orange crescents inside the narrow black border. They were named for the vanished upstate New York hamlet of Karner, where millions of the butterflies once flocked. The inch -wide insects were once plentiful in a narrow swath of oak savanna and pine barrens in 12 states from Maine to Minnesota and in Canada. They are now found in isolated pockets in seven states. Wisconsin is a leader in the preservation efforts. In Minnesota, current efforts to preserve the Kamer blue are focused on restoring oak savannas that have open patches in tree canopies and sandy soil where wild lupine thrives. Jaime Edwards, a nongame wildlife specialist with the Minnesota DNR, has been working in the Whitewater area for about five years, endeavoring to recreate the habitat that Karner blues prefer. She said that Minnesota may have started its conservation efforts too late. "We're really playing catch- up to get the habitat in shape before we lose the butterfly," she said. Minnesota preservation efforts began in the 1990s, when Cynthia Lane studied the Karner blue for four years while pursuing a doctorate in conservation biology at the University of Minnesota. She learned the insect's life cycle, which includes two generations a year, and the varied habitat of sun, partial shade and dense shade that it requires. For additional information, go to www.fws.gov /Midwest/ Endangered/ or to Maja Beckstrom's article in the Sept. 25, 2005, St. Paul Pioneer Press. In this issue Flora ID CD -ROM 2 Winter botany field trip 2 President's column 3 Moonseed (Plant Lore) 3