By the 1960s, the Schnurr Columbine was unofficially considered extinct. This is not the end of the story. Enter the Fennimore family of Colorado Springs. David Fennimore, a high school biology teacher, had read Schnurr’s original 1931 paper as a graduate student. He became obsessed. Every summer, he dragged his reluctant wife, Eleanor, and their two teenage children up treacherous slopes with a tattered copy of Schnurr’s hand-drawn map.
They had found the Schnurr Columbine, alive and thriving, in a micro-habitat less than 200 square feet. The rediscovery was kept secret for five years to prevent poaching. Eventually, the Fennimores worked with the U.S. Forest Service to protect the site. Today, the exact location remains undisclosed to the public, though a small interpretive sign at the Pikes Peak Highway overlook mentions the flower's story. schnurr columbine
"I didn't scream," Eleanor recalled in a 1995 interview. "I just whispered, 'David, come look at this.' He crawled on his hands and knees for ten minutes before he spoke. Then he cried." By the 1960s, the Schnurr Columbine was unofficially
But in —the same month Apollo 11 landed on the moon—the Fennimores made their own small discovery. High on the northwest flank of Mount Rosa , Eleanor sat down to rest on a boulder. Looking down between her boots, she saw it: a cluster of six pale yellow blooms, each with impossibly long, straight spurs. David Fennimore, a high school biology teacher, had
The spurs were too long. The color was wrong—a pale buttercream rather than the standard blue. The leaves were fuzzier, almost silvery. He collected a single specimen, pressed it carefully, and sent it to the New York Botanical Garden.
"We thought Dad was crazy," recalls Margaret Fennimore-Torres, now 72. "We’d spend our Fourth of July holidays looking at rocks. My brother called it 'the wildflower that ate our childhood.'"