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They grow in wild abundance along roadsides and in untended fields in many areas in the Midwest, their showy yellow flowers bright through much of the summer. In fact, many who see them think they are sunflowers, but they are actually compass plants, known scientifically as Silphium laciniatum.

These common ditch-growing wildflowers may take on some additional importance through the efforts of researchers and staff with the Noble Foundation’s Forage Biotechnology Group. Forage grass breeder Dr. Andy Hopkins and members of his research group are making seeds of compass plants available to interested researchers and educators.

The researchers collected seeds and plants from a three-county area in Southern Oklahoma during the fall of 1997. They then grew plants in fields and started taking notes on their growth.

Hopkins said the native North American prairie plant is "very palatable to livestock. It’s almost always one of the first plants to disappear from a pasture" due to cattle’s preference for the broadleaf perennial, he added. "Our main interest was from the forage standpoint. It’s most interesting or important as a forage plant."

In the course of their observations and research, however, the lab staff has accumulated a number of seeds from the compass plants, including from an unusual multi-bloom (called "profuse-ligule" by researchers) compass plant.

Besides sending some of the seeds to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for inclusion in its National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS), Hopkins also is sending information to the Crop Science Society of America for review to register the plant material, labeled NF-1 and NF-1 Profuse Ligule. The information gathered by Ardmore-based Foundation researchers observing plant growth in test plots may also be of importance to other researchers and educators, Hopkins said. Although there already is compass plant germplasm available from the NPGS, there was essentially no information about the plant material.

"When we get the word out that we have these seeds available, it may spark some interest in additional study on this plant," Hopkins said. "The information we’ve gathered about these specific compass plants is also important. People want to know something about the seeds they’re getting."

Among those expected to be interested in the seed stock are native plant society members, managers of botanical gardens, university plant biology, botany and agronomy researchers, and high school science teachers.

"It’s a wild plant," Hopkins said. "It’s just limited to a researcher’s imagination as to what they want to do with this material."

Researchers and educators can request up to 50 compass plant seeds by e-mailing Hopkins at aahopkins@noble.org.

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Cutline information (photos available for download below, or by contacting Sharon Burris at slburris@noble.org or by calling her at 580-224-6363):

Photo 1: A typical compass plant bloom. High Resolution JPEG (600k)

Photo 2: Blossoms of a compass plant exhibiting the "profuse ligule" (multi-bloom) trait. High Resolution JPEG (568k)

Photo 3: A compass plant blossom with curved petals. High Resolution JPEG (568k)

Photo 4: Compass plants growing in the field at Ardmore, Okla. High Resolution JPEG (812k)

All photos/Courtesy The Noble Foundation

See also: Release of NF-1 and NF-1 Profuse Ligule Compass Plant Germplasm, Forage Biotechnology Page

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The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural, forage biotechnological, and plant biology research; providing grants to numerous non-profit charitable, educational and health organizations; and assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs.

To learn more, visit the Noble Foundation Web site at http://www.noble.org.

More news releases available at www.noble.org/Press_Release