CHICAGO — Robb Telfer believes 100 years is a long enough wait to find the most elusive plant in Chicago's history.
Thismia Americana, a tiny flowering plant no bigger than a fingernail, hasn't been seen in the wild in 100 years, and it was only found in Chicago over a five-year period.
It was last located alive at 119th Street and Torrence Avenue in 1916. It now only exists as specimens in liquid-filled jars, but some continue to hold out hope it remains in soil on Chicago's South and Southeast sides.
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Telfer, the Calumet Outreach Coordinator for the Field Museum, is organizing a "Thismia Centennial Hunt" next month to try and find it. The Aug. 20 event will begin at 8 a.m. and take place on the Southeast Side's Indian Ridge Marsh, near the only spots the minute plant was ever located.
"This Lilliputian plant is a mythic figure to Chicago nature lovers specifically, and botanical dweebs globally," said Telfer, of Albany Park. "It's Chicago's only known endemic species and was found in a very narrow habitat. ... People have been organizing Thismia hunts for decades now, and it's always a great way for native ecosystem lovers to bond."
Chicago is the only locale Thismia Americana has ever been discovered. In 1912, University of Chicago graduate student Norma Pfeiffer first saw the Thismia in a low, wet prairie on the Southeast Side near Torrence Avenue. She collected the plants for the next few years, but no one, including Pfeiffer, ever saw Thismia in the wild again after 1916.
In the decades since, scientists and plant enthusiasts alike have tried to find any sign of Thismia Americana. None have been successful.
About 20 of the samples from 1912-16 can be found in the Field Museum's collection, Telfer said.
The plant continues to be shrouded in mystery for many reasons, Telfer said. First is its extremely small size; the fact Pfeiffer saw one in the first place is a "miracle," Telfer said. No one knows why Thismia Americana was in Chicago in the first place; its closest relatives are located in New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania.
"Its closest known relative comes from the other side of the globe, so how did it get here and where did it go?" Telfer said.
The plant itself was also strange. It didn't produce chlorophyll and didn't use photosynthesis. It also spent most of the year underground, feeding on fungi that grew on its roots. The entire plant was white, almost ghost-like, and featured tiny translucent blue green flowers.
Finding another, Telfer said, would be remarkable.
"It seems to be a powerful and enduring symbol of the fragility of our native ecosystems, and the prospect of perhaps rediscovering it is a perfect stand-in for all that we have yet to discover," he said.
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