87-Year-Old Woman Searches for the Endangered Flower That Shares Her Family Name
A lovely story about the endangered Gentner's Fritillary
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Its bloom time for wildflowers in the Cascade foothills and at low elevations across the Northwest. Reporter Amelia Templeton went searching for an endangered lily that only grows on a few hillsides in southern Oregon.
Laura Gentner-Dunwald: “I’m Laura Gentner-Dunwald. I love the spring flowers the most. My father was an etymologist. Taught us the love of nature. We used to be able to dig wildflowers and bring them into our garden which I did when I was in high school.”
One of the flowers she brought home while growing up in Medford was a red lily shaped like a little bell. Botanists at Oregon State University said it was a new species. They called it Gentner’s fritillary, after Laura and her dad. That was seventy years ago.
Laura Gentner-Dunwald: “They’re just gone. And it always makes me sad to see that.”
Gentner-Dunwald says houses have been built on the slopes where she used to find the red lily. Now it’s endangered. The Bureau of Land Management guesses about 1200 of the flowers mature each spring.
Laura Gentner-Dunwald: “Oh my isn’t this pretty. Oh look at this. I love it.”
We’re on a trail just outside the town of Jacksonville looking for a fritillary. Dozens, sometimes a hundred of them, grow up here.
Larry Smith: “We’re on a dry oak hillside, south-facing.”
That’s Larry Smith, with the Jacksonville Woodlands Association. He’s helping Laura Gentner-Dunwald look for her flower.
Larry Smith: “And this is absolutely the perfect environment for them, near the trail. They like a little disturbance.”
A little disturbance, yes. But not a lawnmower. The wild lily is legally protected if it blooms on public land. But not on private land. Smith says there is no law against killing an endangered plant if it’s growing in your backyard. Back on the hillside, Laura Gentner-Dunwald sees a flash of red.
Laura Gentner-Dunwald: "Oh, there it is, and I found it"
The Jacksonville Woodlands Association has bought and set aside several hundred acres of land here to serve as a permanent home for the Gentners’ fritillary and other rare species.
