Hopeful News in the Fight Against White-Nose Syndrome

by Colin Bartol

In 2007 bats of all types began dying in the US in large numbers. A white fuzz would form on the bats before they died, thus the disease was named white-nose syndrome.

It has spread to twelve different bat species and killed at least 6.7 million bats, including in Minnesota. As they died, insect numbers exploded, causing increased pesticide use by farmers, which has been linked to a rise in infant mortality. After 18 years, scientists now have some breakthroughs which are leading to progress in helping bats survive the infection. 

The first step was isolating the fungus. It turns out that it is pseudogymnoascus destructans, which is native to Europe. It has been there for a very long time, so European bats have an immune system which keeps the fungus in check. We do not know how it got from Europe to the US, but once here, it spread like wildfire. Unfortunately, the spores can also stick around for years after the infection has been introduced to a bat colony, lying dormant until a new population of bats moves into the cave.  

Researchers at the University of Illinois discovered in 2013 that polyethylene glycol 8000 can coat the spores and stop the fungus from growing. In the summers of 2018 and 2019, researchers coated an abandoned train tunnel that bats favored in the wintertime with positive results. This has led to expansion of the program to eight other sites.

There has also been a test where bats treated with the probiotic bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens were five times more likely to survive than untreated bats. Of course, treating the millions of bats in North America does not make this an easy solution to the problem, but having tools available for particularly endangered populations can be useful. 

[Map of the range of the little brown bat in North America, courtesy and © University of Toronto Press, 2012.]

The bats are also learning how to fight back. The infected bats are hibernating in cooler roosts. The lower temperature slows the fungal growth and keeps the bats in deeper hibernation. Researchers have done some tests where bat caves are cooled by helping the warm air escape the cave. Although still in testing, the results of this method have been very positive.  

Bats are also evolving to survive. DNA testing by Missouri State University biologist Dr. Giorgia Auteri has shown that brown bats young enough to have survived the initial outbreak are heavier and are waking from hibernation less frequently, both of which help their survivability. If we can help them survive for a few years, they might evolve to survive by themselves.

 

After so many years of only horrible news for our nocturnal mosquito-eating friends, it's nice to have some hope for the future. Hopefully, this trend will continue and their populations will begin to recover. ❖

Here are photos of 3 other bats found in Minnesota that are susceptible to white-nose syndrome.

Colin Bartol is editor of The Fringed Gentian™ and a director of the Friends.

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An Interview with New Board Member

by Candy Bartol

Allow me to introduce a new addition to the Friends of the Wildflower Garden Board of Directors, Joelle Hoeft, who brings enthusiasm and skills to this position.

How were you first attracted to the Garden and why do you keep coming?

My first memory of Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden was a 1973 field trip with my Brownie troop when I was 5 years old. It was a beautiful day, possibly spring as I remember it being verdant. I also remember holding hands in a circle with friends and parent leaders singing: “Make new friends, and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.” 

Flash forward to the early 2000s, when my husband Carson and I moved from St. Paul to Golden Valley with our two young boys, and the Garden became our favorite go-to family spot: just the right size to let the kids run ahead and explore various discoveries in the natural world! I recall the time we saw three rambunctious fox kits tumbling on the hill just north of the shelter, waiting for a parent to return with lunch. We took several guided full moon hikes and were wowed when the naturalist’s call was returned by a real barred owl: “Who cooks for youuuuu?”

What brought you to join our Friends Board?

I attended the Friends annual education meeting in September 2024 to hear pollinator conservationist and author Heather Holm present, and I ran into a few friends, including Mary Steinbicker who connected with Susan Wilkins, who introduced me to Friends Board Chair Jennifer Olson. I mentioned a project I am working on, and how I have had in mind engaging more with EBWG since it is a place I love so dearly. February 2025 was my first meeting.

You already have an interest in another organization that could dovetail with the Garden and its goals. Please tell our readers about the work of this organization.

Since 2023 I have been working–with generous support from an Age-Friendly Minnesota community grant–to research and raise awareness about our need for nature as we age. In April 2024 I published an online report, “A Field Scan of Older Adults and Nature,” which documents opportunities and challenges to accessing nature as we age, showcasing resources and Minnesota-based examples underway.

 

I am currently working on Phase 2 of the grant until March 2026, which is focused on building awareness, supporting organizations doing this work, implementing Field Scan recommendations, and ultimately expanding opportunities for all of us to access nature across Minnesota as we age. To learn more, visit the online Age-Friendly Minnesota Nature Resource Center: http://www.agefriendlymn.org/nature.

What skills and experiences do you bring to the Friends Board? 

At my core, I am a connector, someone who enjoys working in partnership with others. I have worked for many years in both state government and in philanthropy as a grantmaker, though in a human services context rather than an environmental one. I have a lot to learn and am excited to work with the Friends to help support this special place we all love.

What would you like to see happening related to the Garden during your time on the Board?

I have enjoyed seeing the new programming that EBWG has been implementing with the Loppet Foundation and in other ways that ensure the widest possible access for Garden visitors. Expanding such partnerships, especially with those in close proximity, seems like one good strategy, as well as continued support given by the Friends through the Student Transportation Grant Program. I look forward to supporting EBWG in any way I can. ❖ 

 

Candy Bartol is the Friends secretary and board member.

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Birding to Change the World: A Memoir

Review by Betsy Kerr

If you like reading a good memoir, or if you’re seeking inspiration as Earth Day 2025 comes around, pick up Trish O’Kane’s 2024 offering, Birding to Change the World: A Memoir by Trish O’Kane.

It is, in her own words, “a braid of science, personal story, and an activism story” which comes as close to riveting as any memoir can. It’s the story of how a former investigative journalist, peace activist, and hate crimes researcher became a passionate birder, community organizer, and environmental educator. It makes for compelling reading because of O’Kane’s astute analysis of her own evolution, the humor she infuses into the narrative, and the recurring small—and eventually big—victories won against formidable odds.

The story begins in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of the New Orleans home O’Kane and her husband had just moved into. Mired in her post-Katrina depression and disorientation, O’Kane feels the need to replace her usual morning routine of taking in the day’s news. So, inspired by witnessing the joy her dying father found in his backyard birds, she buys a bird feeder and some seed. “The next morning,” she writes, “I began a ritual that became a lifestyle: sitting on the back stoop with a cup of coffee and starting the day with viewing ‘The Sparrow Show,’ live and in color.” 

Surprisingly, it was the humble and often despised house sparrow that became the author’s portal bird, the one that got her hooked on birdwatching. The antics of the morning sparrows, as well as the Monk Parakeets she discovered in the city, brought her the respite and refuge she so desperately needed. This theme of the healing and restorative powers of nature is a leitmotif of O’Kane’s journey, furnishing the principal motivation for her eventual community organizing and the foundation for her unique approach to environmental education, namely, engaging college students as mentors for school-age children as they discover nature through birding.

O’Kane’s meditations on the house sparrow are just one example of the thoroughly-researched and fascinating facts she includes about each of the birds she eventually comes to know. A couple of tidbits: since the house sparrow’s migration from Africa to Europe some 12,000 years ago and its more recent (1850) importation into the U.S., it has been wreaking all kinds of havoc, including setting a thatched cottage roof on fire and knocking down 23,000 dominoes out of 4,321,000 that had been painstakingly assembled to set a new Guinness World Record.

When O’Kane realizes it is time for her to leave New Orleans, she surprises herself by starting a Ph.D. program in Environmental Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. When she discovers a gray catbird nesting in her backyard, she is curious about the bird’s winter haunts and so signs up for an advanced ornithology course because the university doesn’t offer a “Birding for Dummies” course. The following spring and summer, she discovers a host of avian residents of Warner Park, Madison’s second largest urban park, which happens to be across the street from her new home, along with its regular human visitors and devotees. Two years later, O’Kane learns that the part of the park which was a “major urban wildlife refuge” is now threatened by a plan for further development, even though “half of the park’s 213 acres was already covered by mowed grass, buildings, sports facilities, or parking lots.”

The remainder of the memoir recounts the surprising story of the birth and growth of Wild Warner, a small but loudly "squawking" local advocacy group. Against formidable odds, this group not only manages to block further development but also brings about major improvements in the park’s wildlife-fostering habitat. This journey is punctuated by more encounters with an assortment of birds, from an unexpected American bittern to bluebirds to woodcocks. Also encouraging the author—and the reader—are the heartwarming moments when school kids from a low-income neighborhood who are part of the birding club explain to their new college mentor some of the secrets of nature.

This is a book full of much-needed hope for the natural world and for our human species. ❖  

Betsy Kerr is copy-editor of The Fringed Gentian™

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Eloise Butler - Present When Opportunity Knocked

by Gary Bebeau

The need for preservation of natural habitat was clear to some in the early 20th century, including Eloise Butler, a teacher of Botany at Minneapolis Central High School.

As we look forward to the 175th anniversary of her birth next year, we remember how she came forward and collected two members of the University of Minnesota botany department, C. O. Rosendahl and C. H. Hall, to form an organizing committee for a petition to the Park Board to set aside a small section of Glenwood Park “for a natural Botanical Garden for the instruction of students of botany and for the enjoyment of all lovers of nature.” The petition’s approval and the subsequent development of the Wild Botanic Garden is well documented, and when someone was to be in charge of the creation, she took up the challenge. What drew Eloise to the forefront of the task?

Why was Eloise Butler the right person in the right place at the right time to preserve, protect and promote the wild part of our world when others did nothing? A century ago, society was not unaware of how natural habitat was disappearing.

Susan Wilkins asked the question this way: “I have often wondered what it was, precisely, that led Ms. Butler to that contemplative corner of the soul. That place where inner-knowings are articulated and given form, sculpted into being, and molded into the concrete weight of dreams that beg to be realized. What informed Eloise to make this instrumental movement toward the manifestation of her vision, at last, in the cold and dark winter hours over a century ago?”

Eloise wrote: “Until age 15 my chief amusement being then what it still is – roaming the woods. An aunt who lived with us taught my sister and me to know the plants of the neighborhood.”

Then she became a teacher. “At that time and place no other career than teaching was thought of for a studious girl.” It was nature she had come to love and she established a career of teaching others about it. She, who had no idea of marrying, considered it the first great grief in her life when her sister Cora did.

Teaching and learning went hand in hand. “The monotony of my life has been broken during the long summer vacations. I have taken courses of study at Harvard, at Woods Hole and our State University and have enjoyed particularly the instruction of Dr. J. C. Arthur and Dr. Charles Bessey, the latter the greatest and most enthusiastic teacher I have ever met.” [Autobiographical Sketch]

In her essays Eloise often refers to “our wild scenery, with its indigenous flora and fauna, which are fast disappearing in the neighborhood of settlements and under the march of so-called improvements.” [The Wild Botanic Garden, 1911]. “The land has been ruthlessly stripped of the exquisite features that Nature, the greatest landscape gardener, has wrought through the ages, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can never make the place the same again.” [Garden History 1926] The Wildflower Garden gave her the opportunity to preserve and protect something rare, to promote its benefits and to educate others about its importance, which she did in essays, newspaper article and exhibits.

Below: The hillsides and woods of Appleton, Maine where Eloise Butler grew up. Photo from 1989 courtesy Martha Hellander.

“As a pantheist, Eloise Butler looked to nature for spiritual truths. She was instinctively drawn to Wirth Park and the site that would become her spiritual core.” [Cary George 2001] On her death in 1933, Theodore Wirth wrote “Every plant in her garden, large and small, was her living child. Hers was a life of happiness in a kingdom all of her own and her spirit has not departed from those grounds which have been so fittingly named for her.”

Of herself, she wrote: “As you well know, I chiefly live and move and have my being in and for the Wild Botanic Garden.” The Friends of the Wildflower Garden follow Eloise in our mission statement to “protect, preserve and promote” the interests of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary. ❖ 

 

Gary Bebeau is the Friends treasuer and board member.

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President's Greeting

Dear Friends,

Have you visited the Friends of the Wildflower Garden’s website (friendsofeloisebutler.org)? If not, why not, and what are you missing?

In the twelve months starting with January 2024 through December 2024, there were 192,578 unique visitors to our website’s pages!!! The total number of website visitors was double that, and the total number of html pages viewed was almost a million! Of those viewing the website pages each month, 42-75% were from the United States. In August 2024, 70% of the html pages viewed, mostly plant information, were accessed by Americans, with the remainder accessed from Canada 5.8%, China 5.5%, Poland 4%, Germany 2.8%, United Kingdom 2.1%, Romania 1.8% and the Russian Federation 1.7%.

The Friends’ website was started in 2007, and Gary Bebeau has been the webmaster from its inception. Since 2001, Gary has served on the Friends’ Board of Directors and as Treasurer. Thank you, Gary, for your photographs, hard work, and dedication.

 

Clicking on the eight headings gives you the story of the Friends, Eloise Butler, and the Garden, as well as how to support the Garden and volunteer. The 669 Garden plants listed have photos and links to detailed information, including their history.

 

Of the 1,887 unique text pages on the website, 76% were accessed each month in 2024. 93% of these unique pages were either history or plant information. There are also 850 pdf documents. The website’s seven pdf books were downloaded 2,559 times!

 

The Friends’ Fringed Gentian™ newsletters beginning in January 1953 to the present are available on the website. If I search Witch Hazel and Fringed Gentian, it yields 47 references.

In 2024 The Fringed Gentian™ webpage version was accessed 1,918 times, but the most recent Fringed Gentian™ pdf was downloaded 208 times, while older Fringed Gentian™ pdfs were downloaded 25,947 times!

 

The plant information, photos and history on the website are phenomenal. For example:

“Skunk Cabbage is a plant of bogs and wet stream edges. Eloise Butler wrote: ‘The Skunk Cabbage is one of our earliest spring flowers, for it literally thaws through the soil of the icebound marshes. The bud expands into a clump of large leaves, from which the name cabbage is derived. The disagreeable odor is attractive to flies, which find a shelter from the cold within its purplish-red, hood-like spathe and pay rent by pollinating the flowers. The spathe - the showy part of the inflorescence - is merely a large leaf en-wrapping numerous minute flowers set on a fleshy axis.’ Eloise Butler’s records show that she obtained plants of Skunk Cabbage on June 3, 1907 from a site near the Lake Street Bridge in Minneapolis.”

Enjoy the spring, explore our website, and discover The Fringed Gentian™ and Twigs and Branches.

Jennifer Olson ❖

Photos G D Bebeau
Archive of previous President's Letters.

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Rare Plants in the Garden!

from Garden Curator Susan Wilkins

The Garden opens for its 118th year on April 15! Staff are busy preparing the Garden trails and grounds and the Visitor Shelter in addition to preparing resources for visitors, volunteers, and program participants. 

This time of year is perennially full of promise for a nourishing season of growth ahead. And this year is no different as so many await the first wildflower blossoms of the season. What will it be? Snow trillium, maybe. Skunk cabbage, perhaps. Bloodroot, you never know! Soon enough the gates will open, and we will all be invited to walk the trails. As we go, we will make many early spring discoveries for ourselves. If it’s for the first time or the 80th, no matter, there is always delight on the path.

 

Speaking of delight, something that is so critical to our work at the Garden is caring for all of the plants here, common and rare. Did you know, over 50% of the plant species in the Garden today were introduced? These introductions by Eloise Butler and Martha Crone laid the foundation for the Garden we love today. Holding to their vision of building a plant collection that contains the great diversity of native plants in our state and region, we continue this work into the present.

   

Did you also know that the Garden is home to 23 species of plants that are endangered, threatened or of special concern in Minnesota? Notably, 21 of these 23 rare plant species were introduced to the Wildflower Garden beginning back in 1907 when the Garden was created. 

 

These plant populations at the Garden are significant, and they are called ex situ plants in the conservation world. An ex situ plant is one growing in “captivity” outside of its natural habitat, typically in botanic garden settings. An in situ plant population is one growing in its original habitat.

   

The gift of having ex situ plant populations in the Garden is that we can care for these rare plants and monitor them. We can share this information with the conservation community. Another benefit is that we can educate the public about them. As a free public garden, that means they are here for everyone to see up close and firsthand. For people young and old in our community, these plants can inspire a deeper connection to the natural world.

 

In some cases, plant populations growing in ex situ conditions are doing better than the plants in their natural habitats.

 

One endangered plant that we have been monitoring since 2007 in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) is the dwarf trout lily (Erythronium propullans).  This species is listed as endangered on both the Minnesota state level and the Federal level.

   

This tiny, spring-flowering, forest-dwelling wildflower species has a very limited natural range where it grows on its own. There are three MN counties where it is found in situ-- Rice, Goodhue, and Steele – and that’s it in the entire world! And then there a couple of known ex situ populations, including at the Garden thanks to Eloise Butler.

   

Eloise Butler collected and brought these plants to the Garden starting in 1909. She introduced hundreds of native plant species to the Garden between 1907-1933 as part of her vision to create a complete collection of MN native plants in a naturalistic and urban setting for all to enjoy and learn from. 

  

Both in situ and ex situ populations are monitored by the MN DNR with the support of volunteers and partner organizations like the MPRB through efforts by Garden staff.

  

When the dwarf trout lily colonies are counted each spring, volunteers are counting the number of flowers in each colony and also how many anomalies or atypical flowers are present in each colony. This monitoring is being done to keep track of current populations of a very rare plant and to try to understand more thoroughly the reproductive habits and population health concerns with this species.  We are so pleased that the Garden can be such an important part of this work and the preservation of this MN endangered plant species. 

We look forward to seeing you on the Garden trails soon!❖

Read Susan's previous letters here.

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News and Notes

Steve Benson Retires

After 29 years on the Friends Board of Directors, Steve Benson retired last fall. Steve provided sound counsel to the board during his tenure and helped with the germination and completion of many projects. This is Steve’s second retirement, so to speak, as he had earlier retired as Director of the ElderLearning Institute, affiliated with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, at the U of M. After joining the Friends in 1990 Steve volunteered for many things. He said that when you volunteer, you “will join the community of those who find personal delight in the every day unfolding rhythm of the flowers, trees, plants, birds and elusive scurrying creatures, and you can take pride in knowing that you are doing your part in revealing this extraordinary place to the public.” As to the Wildflower Garden: “The Garden will continue to be a quiet jewel in the heart of the city and will also be a living laboratory for the march of climate change.”

Thanks, Steve for all your years of effort! [Photo - Friends of the Wildflower Garden.]

It's 30 Years Old.

Stonework ages gracefully and belies its age. The back gate project as originally conceived was to have been accomplished in 1992 when the back fence was re-aligned to its present position, but was not done due to funds. Brower and Associates was providing the back gate design pro-bono and Able Fence had submitted a bid for 200 feet of new wrought iron fencing to book-end the new front gate, replacing the old barbed wire cyclone fence. This fencing was installed in 1995.

The rational for the new back gate was detailed in minutes of the Friends July 21st 1994 Board Meeting:
1) The gardener needs a gate through which a tractor can be maneuvered.
2) The current gate is unsightly.
3) A new gate would provide a real entrance, not a “back door”; a psychological sense of security would probably be attained by having two entrance points of approximately equal importance.
4) An upgraded gate would provide access to the newly renovated mallard pond.

Finally, in 1995 the project began with the stonework but did not finish until 1997 when the attached iron work and the stone retaining wall were completed.

Additional stone work was done in 2000 and wrought iron fencing was added east and west of the gate along the back path in 2005. The entire 10 year project was funded and contracted by the Friends, for $32,089 thanks to generous support of our donors.

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Notes For and About Our Donors and Volunteers

Annual financial Support: November 2024 to March 15, 2025

All 2024 Annual Support

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Other Donations and Memorials Received

Memorials/In-honor-of Received
November 2024 to March 15, 2025

for Clarence Shallbetter from Darryl Carter
for Elizabeth Anderson from Linda Engberg
for Denise G. Kearney from Sheila Leiter
for Richard Holmsten from Elaine Magnan
In-honor-of
Sharon & Harold Bobgan from Michael Anderson

 

Other Donations Received - separate or an addition to annual support giving
November 2024 to March 15, 2025 from

All 2024 donations and memorials

To make a donation go to our 'Donate & Support' page.

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Other means of Support

Want to honor someone?

A gift in their honor can simply be a means of honoring a living person or some group

or

use this as an alternate type gift for a holiday, a birthday, an anniversary, etc. We will notify them of your gift and of how they will receive our newsletter and other communications for the year ahead. This will introduce them to the Friends and to the Garden. Use the mail-in form or the credit card link on our website 'Donate & Support' page.

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Board of directors positions

The Friends Board of Directors can use your talents! We are an all-volunteer board that meets several time per year and if you have an interest in the Wildflower Garden and in helping support it and our mission of educating the public about the Garden and the natural world get more details by sending an email to to our president at this address.

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You can also support our program by buying a plant identification book.

Do you have our Plant Identification Guide? The 3rd edition has 1,950 photos of the 787 flowering plants, trees and the ferns of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden including many that are of historic interest. Four hundred of these books have been sold, so why not get yours!

From a buyer in New Hampshire: What a terrific collection of photos. I’m sure this guide will be a great compliment to other guides I have. From Minnesota: I love the book and will cherish it for many years to come. Credit card order or use the mail order form, both on our website here.

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Sign up for Twigs & Branches: A monthly email update from the Friends containing news from the Garden and relevant MPRB projects, as well as access to website content featuring short articles from our Board and membership. These articles are written to highlight connections of the plants, history and lore of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden with different time frames or outside events.

If you already are signed up for our emails, you should be getting these. If you are not here's the link to the sign-up form. The form also allows you to sign up for our Fringed Gentian™ announcements and for the Friends Invasive Plant Action Group's emails.

Sign-up Form