Scenes from the Hill Prairie

Late May is a spectacular time on the gravel hill prairie.  The gravel provides a low-nutrient substrate that keeps vegetation competition to a minimum, and as a result several prairie species that are generally not as competitive have the opportunity to thrive.  The photographs that follow are from 28 May 2014 on a gravel hill prairie in McHenry County, Illinois.

 

Viola pedata (Bird's Foot Violet)

Minuartia stricta (Rock Sandwort)

Lithospermum incisum (Fringed Gromwell)

Geum triflorum (Prairie Smoke)

Geum triflorum (Prairie Smoke) in fruit

Sights of Summer on Schulenberg Prairie

Recently, I visited Schulenberg Prairie on the grounds of The Morton Arboretum in preparation for a workshop I will be leading there on 21 September 2013 focusing on asters and goldenrods.  This 100-acre created prairie consists of a rich mix of obligate and conservative prairie species and represents the fourth oldest prairie restoration/planting in the country.  The restoration of Schulenberg Prairie began in 1962 with the installation of plants grown from locally collected seed from existing Chicago region prairies.  Prior to that time, the 100 acres was dominated by a single species, as it was used as an agricultural field.  Since 1962, Schulenberg Prairie has been regularly maintained by volunteers and staff from The Morton Arboretum through herbicide, hand-pulling invasive plants, and fire, resulting in the most diverse and natural-looking prairie conversion that I have ever seen.

 

Prairie Dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) and Stiff Goldenrod (Oligoneuron rigidum) are common in Schulenberg Prairie



Stiff Goldenrod (Oligoneuron rigidum)



Rough Blazing Star (Liatris aspera) adds a touch of pinkish-purple to the prairie backdrop



Cream gentian (Gentiana alba) is surprisingly abundant along the trails through Schulenberg Prairie



A bumblebee (Bombus sp.) forces its way into a Cream Gentian (Gentiana alba) flower in search of a sweet snack



Downy Gentian (Gentiana puberulenta), a real show-stopper



Downy Gentian (Gentiana puberulenta)



Schulenberg prairie was originally planted with a 1:1 ratio of grasses and forbs, and excellent structural diversity still exists 50+ years later thanks to the tireless efforts of staff and volunteers



The expanse of Schulenberg Prairie



Compass Plant (Silphium laciniatum) adds vertical aspect within an otherwise short-grass portion of the prairie

Schulenberg Prairie was named in honor of Ray Schulenberg, former curator at The Morton Arboretum, and one of the true pioneers in prairie restoration at a time when the few remaining prairies of Illinois were being rapidly transformed into agricultural lands and subdivisions.  It was Ray who, in 1962, was given the task of rehabilitating the land that agricultural activities had degraded for decades through the removal of native vegetation and topsoil.  Ray passed away in 2003, but his memory lives on in this spectacular prairie planting that literally bears both his name and the fruits of his labor.

Fail, To Some Extent

I apologize for the delay between posts, but things have been pretty busy lately. Since the Thismia Hunt on 13 August, I've been in five states, including spending nearly a week and a half in Superior, Wisconsin. I'm back home, with plenty of blogging material... but first, a brief Thismia Hunt recap.


Unfortunately, this was the only Thismia americana that I saw on 13 August...


... and it was a lifesize model in a display at the hunt headquarters.


Our team of nine hopeful hunters (several of which are pictured above) spent the day at DuPont Nature Preserve in Gary, Indiana, scouring as much of the wet prairie habitat as we could in five short hours.


Paul Labus (above) of The Nature Conservancy knows this site better than anyone, and he took us to the most likely places where Thismia might occur.


Although our hunt for Thismia was unsuccessful, we were successful in seeing some pretty nice dune and swale habitat with wet prairie in the swales and savannas on the dunes. The wet prairie shown above seemed ideal for Thismia americana, as several of the species originally found growing with the tiny saprophyte were growing here. Our group tallied over 225 plant species during our surveys, which is fairly impressive since we probably only covered 1/4 to 1/2 acre thoroughly, plus our walk to and from the areas that we surveyed.


Another very successful aspect of the Thismia Hunt was the turnout of Thismia hunters. There were over 90 people searching for Thismia (including several very well known Chicago Region botanists) and celebrating 20 years of conservation in the Calumet Region on 13 August. Many of these were people I hadn't seen in a while, and others were new acquaintances.


I am already looking forward to the next Thismia Hunt, as I still maintain hope that it is out there, somewhere.

Harsen's Island Milkweeds

During the past two weeks, I had the opportunity to spend five days botanizing and doing rare plant surveys with several coworkers in the globally and state imperiled to critically imperiled Lakeplain Wet Prairie and Lakeplain Wet-Mesic Prairie communities on Harsen's Island in St. Clair County, Michigan. These communities have developed on glacial lakeplains and have an impermeable clay layer several feet below the sandy surface layer. This results in inundation in the winter and spring and very dry conditions later in the summer. One of the greatest threats to the remaining lakeplain prairies is invasive species... you can see this impending threat in the photograph below, where there is a dense wall of Common Reed (Phragmites australis) in the background, below the tree line.


Two of the plants of conservation concern that we were looking for on this site were milkweeds (Asclepias spp.). We saw numerous milkweeds on our site, including several common species and both of the rare species.


Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) was one of the common species that we saw. As seen above the blossoms of this milkweed are bubblegum pink... and coincidentally they also smell like bubblegum! With its primary geographic distibution centered in the upper Midwest and New England states, Swamp Milkweed is known from most of the Lower 48, with the exceptions being Mississippi, Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington. It grows in many different wet plant communities, including wet prairies, emergent marshes, swamp forests, bogs, and along streams and pond margins.


The milkweed above, Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), grows in much drier conditions and often in well-drained sandy soils. You can find this handsome orange-flowered species growing in prairies and savannas as well as along roadsides and on glades throughout the eastern half of the United States and adjacent Canada, as well as in the southwestern United States. Unlike the other milkweeds, which have a white, milky latex, Butterfly Milkweed has clear sap.


Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca, above) was abundant on the site we investigated on Harsen's Island. Although it is an opportunistic native species that grows in heavily degraded areas, Common Milkweed also grows in various prairie types. The corolla of this species can be pink, as in the photograph above, or more cream-colored. Although its North American distribution includes 39 of the states in the contiguous United States, Common Milkweed is most abundantly distributed in the upper Midwest, the Great Lakes states, and New England.

Now for the species of conservation concern...


We saw numerous individuals and populations of Purple Milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens). As seen above, the corollas of this State Threatened species are a deeper pink than those of Swamp Milkweed or Common Milkweed, ranging even to reddish or purplish. The center of Purple Milkweed's geographical distribution is Missouri and Illinois, with peripheral populations scattered throughout much of the rest of the eastern United States and Ontario. St. Clair County, Michigan, where Harsen's Island is located, is approaching the northernmost limit of the species' distribution. Purple Milkweed is found in wet prairies, oak savannas, and glades, as well as on woodland borders and in thickets.


We also observed some stunning populations of Sullivant's Milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii), also known as Prairie Milkweed. With glabrous, ascending leaves that have a striking pink midvein, the large, pink corollas of this State Threatened milkweed don't need to be present to make a correct identification. Of the species of milkweed discussed in this post, Sullivant's Milkweed has the most narrow geographical distribution, being found in the prairie region of the Great Plains and the Midwest, north into Ontario. As the common name suggests, this attractive milkweed is a prairie obligate.

Unscathed... Mostly

Just as I was getting over the worst case of poison ivy that I've ever had (here's a hint, genius... don't weed whip poison ivy while wearing shorts and flip flops), I joined Scott Holaday and Lee Casebere last Sunday to check out a property near Culver, Indiana. Scott and Lee had visited this private tract in the spring looking for Four-toed Salamanders (Hemidactylium scutatum), and their description of the site, a swampy forest with a lot of ferns, sounded too good to pass up. Had I known ahead of time that there would be as much Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) as there was in this swamp, I still would have wanted to join Scott and Lee, but I'm not sure if Lindsay would have approved of me going.


Shortly after arriving, Lee found a mole salamander (Ambystoma) in the laterale-jeffersonianum complex, a group that is notorious for hybridization and that requires genetic analysis to accurately determine the species. This interesting complex of salamanders includes an all female triploid group that requires sperm from a male salamander from a related species in the same genus to initiate reproduction, but the sperm is often then discarded and no genetic material from the male makes its way into the offspring. This asexual form of reproduction is known as gynogenesis. The best that I can do is to say that this is either a Blue-spotted Salamander (Ambystoma laterale), a Jefferson's Salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonianum), or one of the Ambystoma hybrids.


Our focus quickly shifted kingdoms when Lee exclaimed, "Here's a Purple Fringed Orchid!"


When Scott and Lee first told me about this site, the possibility of finding Lesser Purple Fringed Orchid (Platanthera psycodes) amongst the Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) and Royal Fern (Osmunda regalis) and beneath the Red Maple (Acer rubrum), Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra), and Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor) immediately registered. Little did I know, however, that we would find the largest population of this attractive orchid that any of the three of us had ever seen. Had I done my research ahead of time, I might have thought that there would be less of a chance of finding Lesser Purple Fringed Orchid on this site, even though the habitat was perfect, as it was not mentioned in the monumental 1920s work by Evermann and Clark on the physical and biological resources around Lake Maxinkuckee. In addition, none of the distribution maps that I've seen show this species in Marshall County, Indiana. This makes our finding of an estimated 50 to 100 Lesser Purple Fringed Orchid plants an even more exciting find, as well as a potential county record.


In addition to Lesser Purple Fringed Orchid, Cinnamon Fern, Royal Fern, Black Ash, and an abundance of Poison Sumac, some of the more uncommon plants that we discovered in this swamp forest included Slender Sedge (Carex leptalea), Bulblet-bearing Water Hemlock (Cicuta bulbifera), Crested Wood Fern (Dryopteris cristata), Pipes (Equisetum fluviatile), Floating Manna Grass (Glyceria septentrionalis), Winterberry (Ilex verticillata), Stalked Water Horehound (Lycopus rubellus), Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense var. canadense), Chokeberry (Aronia prunifolia), Dwarf Raspberry (Rubus pubescens), Great Water Dock (Rumex orbiculatus), Rough-leaved Goldenrod (Solidago patula), Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), Highbush Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum), and Smooth White Violet (Viola blanda).


After sludging through mucky soils, swatting at bloodthirsty mosquitoes, losing a gallon of sweat, and brushing up against Poison Sumac plants while trying to squeeze between them, I was convinced that the title of this blog post was going to be "Worth The Rash." Luckily, it appears as though I've escaped with only a small spot of the nasty underneath my left eye. To see 50 to 100 Lesser Purple Fringed Orchids, a single spot of poison sumac is definitely acceptable.

A Fen-tastic Saturday Morning, Part I

This past Saturday morning, I had the opportunity to visit three of northeastern Indiana's best fen preserves with Nate Simons of Blue Heron Ministries and Indiana Department of Natural Resources - Division of Nature Preserves. In this and my next two posts on this blog, I will focus on the plant communities and some of the plants and butterflies we saw during our five or so hours of botanizing these highly diverse and interesting sites.


A fen is a unique wetland type that receives much of its water via groundwater flow. Fens are often mineral-rich systems, but mineral-poor fens also exist. Another unique wetland community that occurs in northeastern Indiana is bog; bogs differ from fens in that they are located in historic glacial lakes and therefore are not connected to groundwater flow, receiving nearly all of their mineral-poor water from precipitation. In northeastern Indiana, fens are often located at the base of glacial moraines. Groundwater coming from the sandy or gravelly moraine picks up calcium and other minerals and often surfaces as a seep or spring, then begins to flow downslope through the soil towards a river or lake (as in the photograph above, taken at the point where Nasby Fen is adjacent to the Pigeon River). A hardpan layer (often marl) beneath the ground surface keeps the water close to the surface as it continues to follow the gradient. This results in a surface soil layer (often muck) that is nearly always saturated with calcium-rich water. This groundwater often surfaces at other points in the fen, known as marl flats, where the marl layer is at the surface.


Above is another photograph of Nasby Fen, the larget fen in the Pigeon River system (and maybe in the state). In this photograph, you can see the diverse structure and composition of a typical northern Indiana fen. These fens consist of a mix of species common in other plant communities that are not expected to be seen growing together. Plant species typical of tallgrass prairies, such as Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), and Indian Grass (Sorghastrum nutans) are often found associating with plant species typical of sedge meadows and marshes, such as Tussock Sedge (Carex stricta), Shining Aster (Aster firmus), and Spotted Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatoriadelphus maculatus). In addition to these plants, fen indicator species that thrive in calcareous conditions make this seemingly hybrid plant community a distinct entity. Some of these species include Shrubby Cinquefoil (Dasiphora fruticosa ssp. floribunda), Grass of Parnassus (Parnassia glauca), and Sticky Tofieldia (Tofieldia glutinosa).


In the photographs above and below of Sawmill Fen, you can see more of the species richness and diversity that helps to define these nutrient rich systems. Fens and sedge meadows often can be found at the same site, and it is sometimes difficult to determine where the fen ends and where the sedge meadow begins, as many of the plant species found in fens are also found in sedge meadows. Fens in northeastern Indiana are usually graminoid-dominated systems, but in the absence of disturbance (such as fire) and with a lack of soil moisture, shrubs including dogwoods (Cornus spp.) and willows (Salix spp.) increase in abundance, leading to a decrease in grasses, sedges, rushes, and forbs.


Extensive restoration in the form of shrub removal and prescribed fire has taken place to maintain the high level of biodiversity present in these graminoid fens. This biodiversity includes more than just the plants. For example, the rare Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) is at home in fens, making use of the adjacent glacial moraine uplands later in the season.


As you can tell, the photograph above is not a fen; instead, this is one of the gravelly glacial moraines adjacent to the third preserve we visited, Lime Lake Fen. The plant community on this moraine consists of an oak-hickory woodland, with approximately 100 trees per acre. Nate told me that before restoration began in this woodland, you couldn't see five feet in front of you as a result of the dense undergrowth of the non-native shrub Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata). These shrubs and some native species including Wild Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) and Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) were removed, and native species characteristic of woodlands were seeded to restore this important but often overlooked and underappreciated habitat. Burning has also been utilized to maintain the open understory characteristic of an oak woodland. Several species from the oak woodlands present historically at this location are now reoccurring at the site, coming back either from the seed bank or from propagules that had been suppressed by the dense woody understory for many years.


The photographs above and below show Lime Lake Fen, which, as the name implies, is adjacent to one of the several lakes known as Lime Lake in northern Indiana. You can see a distinct difference in the plant communties in the two photogaphs. The photograph above was taken near the base of the glacial moraine, where groundwater is flowing through mucky soil towards Lime Lake. The photograph below, on the other hand, was taken in a marl flat on the perimeter of Lime Lake. If you click on the photograph above to expand it, you can see 18-wheelers in the distance; amazingly, this beautiful site is adjacent to the Indiana Toll Road! Unfortunately, the nutrient input from the toll road has led to an abundance of the invasive Narrow-leaved Cattail (Typha angustifolia) and Hybrid Cattail (Typha x glauca) closest to the highway.


From my commentary and these photographs, I hope that you can see why fens are amongst my favorite plant communities. My next post will take you from these landscape views into the dense vegetation, highlighting some of the colorful flowering species that we saw while botanizing these preserves.

Pine Station and Clark and Pine Nature Preserves

For each of the past several years, Shirley Heinze Land Trust has asked me to lead one of their member hikes at northern Indiana preserves. This year, my hike was at Pine Station and Clark and Pine Nature Preserves in Lake County. The hike that I led took place a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to post some of the highlights.


The two dedicated state nature preserves are on opposite sides of Clark Road, with Clark and Pine on the west and Pine Station on the east. The highlight plant at these preserves is the State Endangered American Blue Hearts (Buchnera americana, shown above), a plant of moist sandy prairies with a scattered distribution throughout the eastern United States. American Blue Hearts is considered "one of our very rarest plants" according to Plants of the Chicago Region (1994), and it is considered the plant responsible for initially bringing legendary botanist Floyd Swink to Chicago (be sure to see this link for an account on Floyd, including the story about him, the great Julian Steyermark, and American Blue Hearts).


Clark and Pine Nature preserve consists of shallow swell-and-swale topography, with aquatic plants such as Water Shield (Brasenia schreberi), White Water Lily (Nymphaea odorata), and Variegated Yellow Pond Lily (Nuphar variegata) dominating the swales and mesic prairie plants dominating the swells. When standing at this site, it is always amazing to think of all of the development and destruction that has taken place immediately surrounding these preserves, yet that this kind of quality still exists on much reduced postage stamp parcels. In fact, Clark and Pine Nature Preserve is said to harbor more species of concern (plants and animals combined) than any other nature preserve in Indiana. Another of these state listed species, Purple Bladderwort (Utricularia purpurea, State Rare, shown below) is so common at this site as to form a purple haze over the swales in July and August.


One of our first field trip observations as people were arriving to hike the preserves was an enormous Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus) caterpillar feeding on Sandbar Willow (Salix interior) along the road. This caterpillar, immortalized below, was nearly as large as my index finger, both in length and girth. And let me tell you... I have one hefty index finger!


As we were observing and photographing this caterpillar, we found another green caterpillar, that of and IO Moth (Automeris io) feeding on the same colony of Sandbar Willow. As I was telling those in attendance not to touch this caterpillar, shown below, because those bristly barbs may sting, someone assured me that yes, they do sting, as they had just rubbed up against it and felt its wrath.


Sand mining took place historically at Pine Station, leaving swaths of panne community in areas that were historically mesic prairie swells. Near the Great Lakes, when sand is excavated down to the water table, a unique and rare flora often results, yielding an expression of a seed bank that must be thousands of years old (see my commentary on this topic posted at Get Your Botany On!). The dominant plant species in the man-made panne shown below include Twig Rush (Cladium mariscoides), Golden-seeded Spike Rush (Eleocharis elliptica), Baltic Rush (Juncus balticus var. littoralis, State Rare), Hair Beak Rush (Rhynchospora capillacea), and Low Nutrush (Scleria verticillata). Plant species of conservation concern are common to abundant in this scrape.


One of the plants that often shows up in these scrapes but that occurs naturally in calcareous sands and fens is Kalm's Lobelia (Lobelia kalmii, below). This delicate plant is much more attractive to me than its more conspicous and gaudy relatives Cardinal Flower (L. cardinalis) and Great Blue Lobelia (L. siphilitica), which are much more generalist species in terms of where they will grow.


Another species of concern, Common Bog Arrow Grass (Triglochin maritimum, State Rare, below), is more abundant in this panne than I have seen it anywhere in the state. According to Derek Nimetz of Indiana Department of Natural Resources - Division of Nature Preserves, this species has done extremely well where recreational 4-wheelers have driven through the site. Species like this require periodic disturbance, as they need their space and don't do well in the presence of much competition. Thanks, illegal 4-wheelers!


While walking through the panne, I scared up a Great Egret (Ardea alba, State Special Concern, below), whose white feathered body made for a statuesque subject against a cloudless sapphire sky.


As expected, Pine Station and Clark and Pine Nature Preserves proved an excellent location for a late July field trip.