Abundance at the Paintbrush Prairie

By Liz Weslander | May 2020

A swath of Indian Paintbrush in May 2020 at Paintbrush Prairie in Anderson County.

Photos of this year’s bumper bloom of Indian Paintbrush on Gary Tegtmeier’s 77 acres of permanently protected prairie in Anderson County leave little question as to why he named the land Paintbrush Prairie.
 
Rich swaths of these red blooms are a stand-out feature of the prairie this spring, but when Gary bought the land in a bidding war in the fall of 2014, he named the prairie in honor of a lone stem of Paintbrush, with only the hope that there was more where that came from. At the time of purchase, the prairie had been mowed and baled, and it was hard to tell what would actually grow there come spring.
 
“There were remnants of forbs and grasses at the edge of the property that predicted that this would a good prairie remnant, and that proved to be the case,” said Gary. “But at the time, there was just a single straggler of blooming Paintbrush there. I saw it and said, ‘that’s got to be the name.”
 
Gary says that the Indian Paintbrush blooms on Paintbrush Prairie have gradually increased with each year that he has owned land, but that this year’s bloom was especially profuse.
 
“This year, for reasons that are a mystery to me, it has proliferated,” Gary said. “From last year to this year the amount of area that is blanketed with them has easily doubled, which has created a sea of red that was really impressive.”

Indian Paintbrush may be one of the showier plants that thrive on this prairie, but it is only one of a total of 251 vascular species that Gary and his partner Mary Kowalski have cataloged at Paintbrush Prairie with the help of Caleb Morse from the KU Biodiversity Institute.
 
“For a prairie remnant of that size, that is an impressive number,” Gary said. “We would not know that number if Caleb had not given us his capable help. He has been an invaluable resource.”
 
Many of the plants found on Paintbrush Prairie have high “coefficients of conservation” – a measure of a species’ likely presence in a pre-settlement landscape. There are also at least 16 sites of federally threatened Mead’s Milkweed, which continue to proliferate with each passing year.

Gary said that although he probably paid $400-$500 an acre more than the market price for Paintbrush Prairie, he has never had second thoughts about buying and protecting the land. Regular visits to Paintbrush Prairie to collect data and learn about the plants species there is how he and Mary keep themselves “out of mischief,”Gary said, and that time on the prairie is always special.
 
“Visits throughout the year are a source of wonder if you get turned on by prairie forbs,” Gary said, “It’s wonderful to start out in spring and see the trout lilies on the prairie, and end up the year with a variety of Asters. It’s been a source of solitude and contentment and joy that is hard to find in other locales.”