ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 25, 1995 TAG: 9512260011
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: STUARTS DRAFT
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
Biologist Judy Dunscomb steps lightly through a field of cattails and goldenrod in the Nature Conservancy's newest preserve, stopping when she spots the funnel-shaped flower of a datura plant.
The datura root, she explains, is a mild hallucinogenic. Indians who hunted bison and elk here used it in rituals. Then the settlers came, plowed and planted the prairie and drove the Indians off.
The Shenandoah Valley was once a mosaic of wet and dry prairies. Elkton, Buffalo Gap and the Cowbane Wet Prairie - a 79-acre preserve that harbors one of the greatest concentrations of rare plants in Virginia - are among the rare reminders of that era.
``As native Virginians, it matters to preserve a piece of natural heritage,'' said Rob Riordan, a Nature Conservancy field guide.
It mattered to Tom Wieboldt, associate curator of the herbarium at Virginia Tech. In 1979, he discovered the rare plants, like brown bog sedge, buckbean, rattlesnake master and queen-of-the-prairie, in a marshy field tucked behind a vinyl-siding factory.
It mattered to Pat Haden, environmental coordinator for the Alcoa plant. For a decade, he worked with botanists and ecologists to preserve the prairie and dam a ditch that was draining the wetland. Then he helped persuade the company to donate the first 14 acres of the Cowbane preserve to the Nature Conservancy in September.
And it mattered to Tom Willits. Before the Nature Conservancy stepped in, the Waynesboro attorney intended to develop the adjacent 65 acres zoned for industrial subdivision.
``I began to see that the land really was unique,'' Willits said. ``In fact, the source of the water that feeds the wet prairie is on the land I sold them.''
While much of the land Willits sold is a corn field along the South River, the spring was essential.
``Without the headwaters, the area would always be threatened,'' Riordan said. ``All this restoration would be for nothing if the water source was diverted for an industry.''
The Nature Conservancy in Virginia is focusing its preservation efforts on eight pockets of environmental diversity that are threatened, including the Shenandoah prairies. The private, nonprofit group has protected 203,000 acres in the state and owns and maintains 27 preserves.
The Cowbane sits along a the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks and the South River on the western slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Beside the seeping spring, beavers built a lodge with red maple and ash trees and a pond used by blue heron, Canada geese and kingfishers. Nearby, muskrats which feed on cattail roots have built their lodges out of the remaining leaves and stalks, and birds nest on top of them - nature's version of a two-story housing project.
As Dunscomb walked through the field, she brushed against pappas plants and sent their fluff-covered seeds drifting toward a corn field that she hopes will revert one day to a prairie.
In three or four years, the preserve could look the way it did in the centuries before the white settlers arrived.
But it will take work. Japanese honeysuckle vines, introduced years ago to stabilize soil and form a natural hedgerow, spread aggressively and choke out indigenous vegetation.
``It is going to require more than just leaving it alone,'' Dunscomb said.
The Nature Conservancy is raising money to pay for the land and restoration efforts.
And to restore the prairie to its primeval state, conservationists are using one tactic the Indians did - proscribed burning. They set fires and burned patches of the prairie, she said, ``to keep the grasses rich so bison and elk had a lot of good forage.''
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Biologist Judy Dunscombe (right) says preservingby CNBthe wetlands is going to take more than just leaving it alone. 2.
Among the many rare and endangered plants found in Cowbane Wet
Prairie in Stuarts Draft is the purple-flowered winged losestrife
(above).