A strong wind blows away mosquitoes as six people gather on a narrow, gravel road next to nearly 500 acres of public land in Wilkin County.

“Good morning, everyone. We’re looking for the pleated gentian. I have some identification guides,” said Deanna Leigh, community science coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources.

Her job is to launch the Minnesota PlantWatch program.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources maintains a database of thousands of rare plant records from across the state, most of them compiled by the Biological Survey, which has been documenting species in all Minnesota counties since 1987.

But many of those records are decades old, and a new citizen science project is working to update them. The information could help land managers and scientists protect and preserve rare species.

This common gentianor pleated gentian, which they are looking for in Wilkin County, was last documented in the area in 1980. It is a small plant, often shorter than a foot, with funnel-shaped, one-inch, purple flowers.

“This purple flower is actually a very distinct shade of purple compared to other things you’ll see here,” Leigh tells searchers.

The group comes from a wide range of experience, from a professional botanist from the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum to a retired attorney who has spent a half-dozen days searching for rare plants.

They spread out in a line and begin to move toward the prairie, slowly moving in the opposite direction, about a quarter of a mile away.

Eyes search the ground through the tall prairie grass for a flash of purple.

“Especially if it’s something you’ve never seen before, it’s quite difficult,” Leigh said. “Usually finding the first plant is the hardest because it’s a fairly small plant in this tall vegetation, it’s difficult to find.”

“There are times when we give up and go back to the car and then we find it. So it’s a bit of luck,” she added.

Hiring trained volunteers means more people in the field and more eyes on the flora.

Vince King is a retired attorney from St. Paul who completed PlantWatch training this spring.

“When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in the woods and prairies looking for wildflowers, and I haven’t done that in 30 or 40 years,” he said. “So it’s exciting to be doing it again.”

King hasn’t found a rare plant yet, but he has a chance to see new places in the state he’s lived in for 66 years.

He was in a cedar swamp in the Chippewa National Forest, and on this August day he had a chance to see the prairie landscape up close.

“So I get to see things that I would normally just drive past, and that’s really wonderful,” he said.

Four ecological regions, or biomes, converge in Minnesota, giving it a unique mix of plant life. And Deanna Leigh says that means it has more rare plants than many other states.

“Our rare plants are all over the state, which is nice because it means we can recruit people from all over,” she said. “There’s a lot to cover.”

The DNR database contains thousands of locations where rare plants have been documented.

PlantWatch is a partnership between the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and the Minnesota DNR. Collaborators include the Bell Museum of Natural History, the Minnesota Native Plant Society, and the Minnesota Master Naturalist program.

David Remucal, curator of endangered plants at the Landscape Arboretum, said the DNR simply does not have enough resources to monitor the thousands of rare plants across the state.

“It took them a couple of decades to really do the first comprehensive study of Minnesota. So the thought of going back and re-examining all these rare plants is very daunting,” he said.

Finding rare plants while they are flowering makes it easier to return later to collect seeds and store genetic material.

“Seeds are a really convenient way to store a lot of genetic data in a really small package,” Remucal said. “And for many species, they can be stored for quite a long time, decades, potentially even centuries, if stored properly.”

The seed bank can prevent plant loss, and the genetic diversity will aid future efforts to reintroduce or increase plant populations.

The pleated gentian is at the eastern end of its range in western Minnesota.

“When you have these species that are at the edge of their range, they often have unique traits,” Leigh explained as she moved across the prairie. “They may have important genetic information that allows them to live in that place.”

These genetics can help understand why plants do better in some areas than others.

“And especially when we look at challenges like climate change, these species may have really important adaptations in one place that they don’t have elsewhere that could help them survive in the future,” Leigh said.

Minnesota PlantWatch started last year with funding from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund. The project trained 19 volunteers the first summer. This year, 50 volunteers have been trained.

Students learn about search methods and agree not to share information about the location of rare plants to prevent poaching of endangered species.

Organizers say PlantWatch could support up to 100 volunteers statewide. They hope the project will be funded long-term.

After more than an hour of hunting in Wilkin County, a faint cry comes from the far end of the search area over the prairie.

Volunteer Andrea Nistler found the rare Pleated Gentian.

Everyone cautiously gathers around, and she crouches protectively over the plant.

“Oh yeah, great job Andrea, that’s amazing,” Leigh exclaims.

It is the first find of the rare plant by Nistler, who is in the field on only her second day as a volunteer.

“Quite exciting,” she said. “A very pretty flower.”

Her discovery will update a 44-year record of the species in the area. It will be tagged with GPS coordinates, so the next time someone looks for the pleated gentian, it will be much easier to find.