Meg Jones

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

TOWN OF SAUKVILLE – Bob Foss would not use these words, but you could call him a wizard of seeds.

If seeds are, in essence, babies with lunches, then Foss is the leader of a nursery that's ensuring the health and heritage of the land surrounding Riveredge Nature Center one tiny seed at a time.

Wild ginseng. Burr oak. Eastern leatherwood. White prairie clover. Butterfly weed. Lupine. Jacob's ladder. Jack-in-the-pulpit.

Foss and other volunteers collect the seeds from which native trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses sprout. Then he germinates them, writes copious notes on the particularities of each plant, grows them in small pots, moves them to bigger pots and then puts them up for sale at Riveredge Nature Center, where he's been a volunteer for 24 years.

Many people traipse through the outdoors without a thought as to what's underneath their shoes, nor do they notice the natural world around them, an apathy that has led to the extinction of some plants. So it's important for folks like Foss to notice. And record, collect, germinate and replant.

"Bob is one of the few people left who has land management knowledge of 50 years of what was done here," said Matt Smith, Riveredge's land manager.

Plenty of nurseries sell plants, but many import them from other states or elsewhere in Wisconsin. Some creatures that pollinate plants have special relationships with specific plants that can be found only in a tiny area.

That's where the 84-year-old Foss comes in.

"He's able to crack the nut on germinating things that some of the nurseries don't offer. You can't even get the plants commercially," Smith said. "We know there are specific pollinators that have intimate relationships with a flowering community. Having those plants is like putting a spoke back in the wheel."

For example, at Riveredge Foss helped germinate a type of swamp thistle that has a relationship with an endangered butterfly, Smith noted.

Twice a week Foss walks down the stairs to the basement of the nature center where his cluttered workspace holds a two-volume set of "Wild Flowers of the United States," stacks of planting containers, tools and binders filled with his handwritten notes on each of the 150 plants he has collected within an 11-mile radius of Riveredge.

He gathers native seeds several months each year, starting with eastern leatherwood around April 1 and ending with witch hazel in mid-October.

"Some are rare. They're hard to find, like ginseng, leatherwood and downy prairie clover," said Foss.

After collecting seeds, he cleans and sorts them, stratifies them through a cold treatment in moist soil (temperatures vary depending on the plant), then plants them in small pots, where they germinate.

He developed survey sheets over the years to include more information than simply scientific name and genus, including germination details and the plant's behavior as it grows.

In his eight-plus decades, Foss has seen some of Wisconsin's land transform from native oak savanna and prairie to subdivisions and sprawling communities. Plants like big bluestem and little bluestem grass used to be pervasive but now are found only in small areas, said Foss.

"Most people don't really care" if plants become extinct, said Foss.

Foss grew up on Milwaukee's north side, graduating from Boys Tech High School and working for a lithograph company for four decades. As a kid he was interested in plants and cultivated a Victory Garden during World War II, walking to a community plot near his home to nurture carrots, tomatoes, beets, radishes, cauliflower and broccoli that his mother served at the family's dining table.

When he got bored after retiring 24 years ago, Foss mentioned to his doctor that he was looking for some volunteer work and his doctor told him about Riveredge, a 379-acre sanctuary established in 1968 by the Whitefish Bay Garden Club.

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Foss isn't sure how much longer he'll continue to volunteer at Riveredge, but so far he's got good health and loves taking care of the flora that surrounds the nature center.

Smith, who started working at Riveredge three years ago, hopes Foss sticks around for a long time.

"He's like the last guy supporting the collective memory of the people impassioned with Riveredge before I got here," said Smith.