George Yatskievych Finds Endangered Plant in His Own Backyard

January 27, 1994

On this day, The South Bend Tribune, out of South Bend, Indiana, shared an article by Doug Glass called “Botanist Finds Endangered Plant in His Garden.”

“For someone who makes his living studying plants, George Yatskievych is an indifferent gardener.

It took [him] several months to notice that a load of topsoil delivered to his home in St. Louis was sprouting several clusters of trifolium stoloniferum, also known as Running Buffalo Clover. This native plant had all but vanished in Missouri.

“I was out weeding a flower bed near this topsoil, down on my knees, when I sort of came nose to nose with these things,” said George, who works at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.

"You spend all this time and effort looking for this in nature. . . . (The discovery) was so unexpected."

Yatskievych and other botanists took the six clovers found in his topsoil and began a project to reintroduce the plant to Missouri.

Now, some five years after his discovery, the Missouri Department of Conservation oversees some 700 seedlings in 25 experimental plots statewide.”