By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

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Independent/Barrett Stinson As Walnut Middle School seventh-graders (from left) Kallie Rother and Javier Lopez watch, James Stubbendieck, director of Great Plains studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, shows one of the blowout penstemon seedlings he brought with him to Walnut integration specialist Janet Schutz (right) on Friday. Independent/Barrett Stinson Walnut Middle School instructor Paul Walkowiak smells a blooming blowout penstemon plant Friday at the school. Of 300 species of penstemon, the blowout penstemon is one of only two that have a fragrance. Walkowiak is one of the sponsors of Walnut¹s Penstemon Protectors. Independent/Barrett Stinson The blowout penstemon plant only blooms once a year with a flowering stalk. Click Thumbnails to View

But all the students had one thing in common: None of them had ever seen a blowout penstemon in bloom. That is, until Friday.

That's when James Stubbendieck of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln brought a blooming penstemon to Walnut for the students to see.

Stubbendieck's visit was something of a surprise, with his primary purpose to bring more penstemon seedlings to Walnut for the students to tend.

He also got an opportunity to see the plants that students had raised from seeds. Stubbendieck approved, giving only a piece of advice to trim some of the plants back a little bit.

Last year, students received seedlings from UNL and successfully tended them until they could be planted in the Nebraska sand dunes.

Walnut integration specialist Kim Madison said the students who did the transplanting went too early to actually see any blooming penstemons.

"They bloom in late May and all through June," she said. "Not any of the plants were in bloom when the students were there."

This year, Walnut students who joined the school's Penstemon Protectors faced an even more daunting task. They were asked to raise penstemons from seeds.

Madison said students planted four or five seeds in each yellow pod. If more than one seed sprouted, students separated the sprouts by transplanting one of them to another pod.

She said students have had good success in growing the seeds, with only a few plants dying along the way over Thanksgiving break.

When Stubbendieck brought the blooming penstemon to Walnut, it gave the students an opportunity to learn about the plants for which they have been caring.

He said the plant he brought to school was about a year old.

"Some of your transplants from last year will bloom this year," Stubbendieck said. He said even more of the transplants will bloom next year.

He also told the students that a capsule will grow behind each of the individual flowers on the penstemon, with each capsule containing about 15 seeds.

Despite this abundance of seeds, the blowout penstemon is an endangered plant.

Stubbendieck said that each blowout penstemon on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service land in western Nebraska is valued at $25,000. He pointed to the tray he brought to school on Friday and said that was worth nearly $2.5 million.

However, if a blowout penstemon is on private land, Stubbendieck said, the owner of that land can dig it out. In creating the endangered species protection for the blowout penstemon, authorities tried to be landowner-friendly. He said private landowners can't spray a blowout penstemon with herbicide.

Stubbendieck said the landowners he has met don't mind having blowout penstemons on their property because the law still gives them the freedom to manage their land pretty much as they see fit, with the exception of not using herbicide on the plants.

In fact, Stubbendieck said, many landowners even seem proud to have the endangered plant on their property. He said landowners have been very cooperative when he and other officials have asked permission to take a particularly thriving blowout penstemon from their land in order to transplant it on federal land.

While Walnut students enjoyed a rare opportunity to see a blooming blowout penstemon, they had an even more rare opportunity to smell the flower.

Janet Schutz, another Walnut integration specialist, told Stubbendieck about some of the descriptions people had given when smelling the flowers.

"They've said it smells like lilacs, white chocolate, baby powder and minty," she said.

Stubbendieck said he had heard all those answers except one.

"I haven't heard baby powder before, but I can see it," he said.

Schutz said this year's Walnut Penstemon Protectors will travel to western Nebraska to transplant the blowout penstemons in May.