Chicago WILDERNES S...cabin on the horizon. By Ronald W. Kurowski. AT RIGHT: Rare bird stops by city...

FIRE AS A FRIEND • THINKING LIKE A SEED

ChicagoWILDERNESS

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E X P L O R I N G N A T U R E & C U L T U R E

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is Chicago Wilderness?Chicago Wilderness is some of the finest and most signifi-

cant nature in the temperate world, with roughly 200,000

acres of protected natural lands harboring native plant and

animal communities that are more rare—and their survival

more globally threatened—than the tropical rain forests.

C H I C A G O W I L D E R N E S S is an unprecedented

alliance of more than 60 public and private organizations

working together to study and restore, protect and manage

the precious natural resources of the Chicago region for the

benefit of the public.

ChicagoWILDERNESS is a new quarterly magazine that seeks to

articulate a vision of regional identity linked to nature and

our natural heritage, to celebrate and promote the rich nat-

ural areas of this region, and to inform readers about the

work of the many organizations engaged in collaborative

conservation.

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D e b r a S h o r e

E D I T O R

C H I C A G O W I L D E R N E S SA Reg i ona l Na ture Re s e rv e

For generations of us inculcated with the gospel accordingto Smokey, setting fire to woods and prairies on purposeamounts to blasphemy. Yet those who love the land havebeen wrestling with some new ideas about fire—new ideasthat are very old. It turns out that our native landscape was bathed by fire,

evolved under fire, thrived on fire. Only when we deniedfire, through our civilizing intercession, did plants and ani-mals living in fire-dependent ecosystems themselves begindisappearing wholesale fromthe land. As Alex Blumberg soably points out in “Fire As aFriend” (p. 4), prairies withoutfire are like rainforests withoutrain: an aberration, a sick anddying thing.Pages 4 and 8 of this issue

are graced with the noblepaintings of George Catlin (forwhich we are deeply indebtedto the Gilcrease Museum ofTulsa, Oklahoma). Catlin wasan artist and hero. A younglawyer in 1832, he one day dis-posed of all his worldlyattachments, stocked up onartist’s supplies, and embarkedon a life beyond the frontier,painting Native Americansand their landscape, often asthe first Euro-American to visita given tribe or watershed. “The prairies burning form

some of the most beautifulscenes that are to be witnessedin this country,” Catlin wrote,“and also some of the most sub-lime. Every acre of these vast prairies (being covered forhundred and hundreds of miles, with a crop of grass, whichdies and dries in the fall) burns over during the fall or earlyin the spring, leaving the ground of a black and doleful color.“There are many modes by which fire is communicated to

them, both by white men and by Indians—par accident; andyet many more where it is voluntarily done for the purposeof getting a fresh crop of grass, for the grazing of their horses,and also for easier travelling during the next summer.”Ancient Chicagua and the ancestral lands throughout

the Midwest burned—and burned often. And now we burn again to save the nature that was and

remains the heritage of this region. Even in the city weburn—carefully, under highly prescribed conditions, to be

sure—yet whoever would restorethem must torch our ancientgrasses and oak woodlands.The prospect confounds.

Burning today is counter-intuitive. Then the scientistsproduce the data, and we learnthe need to burn a prairie tokeep it healthy. Yes, I say to fireas a friend, yes.Chicago Wilderness itself is

confounding. We humans havetrammeled the landscape foreons, shaping—and being shapedby—the living land. The abiding, affirming vision

of Chicago Wilderness is neitherto trash humans as abusers, norto revere nature as somethingsomehow untouched by thehand of man. The abiding, affirming vision

of Chicago Wilderness is a middle course, namely, thathumans and other species share ahome, that we can shape and beshaped by each other in mutuallybeneficial ways. Our adventure,

like Catlin’s, is one of discovery and change. And what welearn may mean the difference between life and death formuch of local nature.We learn and we reach out to friendsand neighbors with this welcoming message of restorationand renewal. Yes, I say to Chicago Wilderness, yes.

OPPOSITE:Am

erican goldfinch on a nodding thistle. Photo by Len Messineo/Root Resources.

Keeping the Home Fires Burning

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Photo: Kim Karpeles/Life Through the Lens

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C O N T E N T S

F E A T U R E SFIRE AS A FRIEND by Alex Blumberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

The archaeology and future of fire. And what about Bambi? And Thumper—and the catch-22 of the Karner blue?

THINKING LIKE A SEED by Robyn Flakne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10How a Swiss fellow invented velcro—and other seed surprises.

D EPAR TMENT SInto the Wild. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Our guide to the best nature in the region—what to do and see, when to go, where to hike, bike, canoe, ride horses, watch birds, even find solitude. Plus listings of outdoor work parties.

Working the Wilderness: Prairie Burn by Joe Neumann . . .14Observe a prescribed burn at Markham prairie, waterpack and all.

Natural Events Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20What’s debuting on nature’s stage this season with tips for where to see,hear, and find the natural wonders of Chicago Wilderness.

Meet Your Neighbors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21Meet migrating hawks — broad-wings, Cooper’s, and ospreys soaring.Meet Joan Meersman, model seed collector. Meet the prairie gentian,late-blooming beauty a.k.a blue blossom medicine.

The Strange Case of the Vanishing Oak Woods . . . . . . . . . . . .24What happens to oak forests with—and without—fire? A learning activity for family and friends.

News from Chicago Wilderness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

Guest Essay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 First Metropolis of the Future by Jane Elder. Will the bold vision ofChicago Wilderness inspire the world’s first urban biosphere reserve?

Reading Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32A bittersweet tale of good and evil.

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EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:Barbara Whitney Carr, Chicago Botanic GardenLaura Gates, Field MuseumDan Griffin, Forest Preserve District of DuPage CountyGeorge Rabb, Brookfield Zoo

EDITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Debra ShoreSENIOR EDITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen PackardASSISTANT EDITORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sheryl De Vore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chris Howes

NEWS EDITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Elizabeth SandersART DIRECTOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Liita ForsythASSISTANT DESIGNER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Terri WymoreEDITORIAL CONSULTANT . . . . . . . . . Bill Aldrich

Chicago WILDERNESS is published quarterly.Subscriptions are $12/yr. Please address all subscription correspondence to Chicago WILDERNESS, P.O. Box 268,Downers Grove, IL 60515-0268. Please direct editorialinquiries and correspondence to Editor, ChicagoWILDERNESS, 9232 Avers Ave, Evanston, IL 60203.(847) 677-2470. e-mail: [email protected] Unsolicitedmanuscripts cannot be returned without a self-addressedstamped envelope. Chicago WILDERNESS is printed onrecycled paper and should be passed around from friend tofriend. Chicago WILDERNESS is endorsed by the ChicagoRegion Biodiversity Council. The opinions expressed inthese pages, however, are the authors’ own. © by ChicagoWilderness Magazine, Inc.

ISSN 1097-8917. Postmaster, address service requested toChicago WILDERNESS, PO Box 268, Downers Grove, IL60515-0268.

All rights reserved.

Photo: Mary A. Root/Root Resources


Photo: Carol Freeman

COVER PHOTO: In the 14,000-acre wilds ofPalos, Cook County Forest Preserves by MikeMacDonald.

OPPOSITE: Autumn mist at Goose LakePrairie southwest of Joliet, with settler’scabin on the horizon. By Ronald W. Kurowski.

AT RIGHT: Rare bird stops by city park. See page 26.

ChicagoWILDERNESS

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Photo: Eric Walters


4 C H I C A G O W I L D E R N E S S

Twenty years ago, Jo Ellen Siddens would have beenlocked up as an arsonist. Today I’m in the passengerseat as Siddens, an ecologist with the DuPageCounty Forest Preserve District, bumps her county-issueDodge Caravan along a gravel access road in WaterfallGlen near the village of Lemont. Abruptly, the scenery shifts. Siddens stops the van.

A line runs at a right angle from the road into the woods,dividing one world from another. On the left side of theline, giant oaks form open chambers, with vaulted ceilingsof arching boughs and lush carpets of woodland wildflowers.To the right of the line, eight- to twelve-foot buckthorn andhoneysuckle trees lurch from the ground at asymmetricangles, knotting their branches into organic barbed wire.

If the scene to the left calls to mind a cathedral, spaciousand gently lit, the scene to the right seems more like a warren, dark and claustrophobic.Twenty years ago the entire area looked like the tangle

to the right. Two hundred years ago it resembled the groveto the left. These clashing versions of the same landscapenow lie side by side. They offer testimony to how the landhas changed in the 150 years since Europeans first settledhere. Jo Ellen, her counterparts in other districts, andcountless volunteers throughout the Chicago region areslowly undoing these changes, restoring the land to whatthey see as its healthy natural condition. Their main tool isfire. The snarl to the right of the dividing line hasn’t feltflame in over half a century. The glade to the left is

Fire As FriendIn the past two decades, scientific opinion has turneddecidedly against the gospel according to Smokey.

Scientists now understand that fire is, in fact, the norm.by Alex Blumberg


torched every couple of years. “Someday,” Siddens sayswistfully, “we’ll be able to do a full landscape burn through-out the entire preserve.”Twenty years ago, Jo Ellen would have been branded a

threat to society for even uttering such a sentiment, let alonetaking steps to carry it out. Burning, went the conventional

wisdom, didn’t restore, it destroyed. So firmly did we believeour anti-fire credo that we anointed an anthropomorphizedcartoon bear to preach it on TV. But in the past twodecades, scientific opinion has turned decidedly against thegospel according to Smokey. We used to believe, mistakenly,that fire was an unnatural deviation, a calamity. Scientistsnow understand that fire is, in fact, the norm.“[L]ife invented fire,” writes natural historian Steven Pyne

in his book Vestal Fire. “The plants that created fuel also cre-ated oxygen and thus closed the Earth’s fire triangle.” Theprehuman landscape—bathed in flammable gas, stockedwith plants grown alternately lush by rain and brittle bydrought, and swept by electrical storms roiling perpetuallyacross its surface—was a literally volatile mix. Given such anuncanny coincidence of fuel, oxygen and incendiary spark,how could the planet do anything but burn?Throughout most of the world’s environments, fire was a

cyclic phenomenon, just like the shifting seasons, the dailytides, the summer monsoons, or periodic drought. Likethem, fire helped define a region’s natural rhythms andshape the evolution of the plants and animals living there.Different environments experience different fire regimes.Yellowstone’s lodgepole pine forests burn rarely, once every100 years or so. Yosemite’s ponderosas burn more fre-quently, about once a decade. The Midwestern tallgrassprairie might have burned as often as every year or two. No matter what the regime however, removing fire from afire-dependent ecosystem is like removing rain from therainforest. Without it, lodgepole seeds won’t germinate,ponderosas grow crowded and susceptible to disease, prairiegrasses succumb to fire-sensitive invaders. If fire were sup-pressed long enough, these ecosystems would disappearentirely. For millennia, fire swept through the woodlands,marshes, savannas, and prairies of Illinois every few years.Since the passage of the Homestead Act, the interval is acentury and a half and counting.To see how catastrophically fire suppression has dis-

rupted the ecosystems of Illinois, there’s no better vantagepoint than the dividing line at Waterfall Glen, which doc-uments the process in vivid before and after snapshots. On

the before side, the burned side, stretches an oak savannathat pre-biblical Native Americans would recognize. Whiteoaks, bur oaks, and shagbark hickory form a loose, opencanopy. A patchwork of woodland flowers and grasses blan-kets the ground. Butterflies flit, and sunlight dapples. It’sopen, inviting—literally a sylvan glade. And on the

unburned side? “The darkness and dankness remind me ofthe stereotypical evil forest in a Disney movie,” says JoEllen Siddens, “where branches reach out to grab you andtrees trip you with their roots.” All the open spaces arenow clogged with an impenetrable understory of brushybuckthorn and honeysuckle, an occasional native cherry or

OPPOSITE: George Catlin, Prairie Meadows Burning, on theMissouri, 1852, oil on canvas, 0176.2133, from the Collectionof Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Eared gerardia and most of the other rare and wonderful animals and plants of Chicago Wilderness owe their lives to frequent fire.

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Removing fire from a fire-dependent ecosystem is like removing rain from the rainforest.

If fire were suppressed long enough, many ecosystems would disappear entirely.

Photo: Stephen Packard



dogwood thrown in for good measure. If you kneel and peer below the branches, your gaze

might encounter the thick trunk of an oak. These trunksonce spread the kind of massive lower boughs which sup-ported sunlit maidens on garden swings in 19th-centuryImpressionist paintings. As the overgrown thorn scrub roseup to envelope them in shadow, these lower branches rot-ted and dropped. But to witness the most chilling evidenceof the landscape’s decline, one has only to look down. Theground on the burned side, suffused with light tricklingthrough the open canopy, is blanketed by a living tapes-try—the fabric woven of over a hundred species of nativegrasses and wildflowers, the design formed by an intricatejumble of leaf, petal, pattern, and color. Butterflies flit,birds sing. By contrast, in the gloom beneath the buck-thorn on the unburned side, nothing grows, flits, or sings.The snake’s eye view reveals the odd eruption of spindlytrunks, the occasional lonely buckthorn seedling, and hugestretches of barren dirt.This is the lesson of the dividing line. On the simple

theme of life, evolution composes eternal fugues and varia-tions. From the randomness of natural selection emerges amosaic of complex interrelationships and precise ecologicalniches. Fire is the grout which holds it all together. Whenwe stop the land from burning, this mosaic, this jigsaw puz-zle that evolution has been assembling for the last 10million years, is swept away. A substitute ecosystemreplaces it, one which is simplified to the lowest commondenominator plants and animals—the generalists that cansurvive in as dirty and disrupted an environment as we can.The process is akin to emptying a zoo of all its animals andreplacing them with pigeons, rats, and roaches. Without

fire, says Ed Collins, an ecologist with the McHenryCounty Conservation District, we’re heading for “a worldof starlings and dandelions.”In many parts of the Chicago region, by the time the

nature of this eventual destination finally dawned on us, wewere halfway there already. “We got used to thinking of a

woods as a place you couldn’t walk through,” says WayneLampa, retired chief ecologist of the DuPage County ForestPreserve District. “The only thing you ever saw was buck-thorn, Virginia creeper, and poison ivy…we thought thatwas the way it was supposed to look.” Evidence to the con-trary gradually revealed itself in various ways. Firstclue—the species composition of the region’s natural com-munities was changing. In almost all the woods andsavannas, the oldest and largest trees were oaks, but amongthe swirl of young maple, cherry, honeysuckle, and buck-thorn growing below, oak saplings were absent. Secondclue—periodic inventories revealed a steady decline in rareplant and insect species, even in the protected forest pre-serves. And then there was the occasional mysterious plantname. “Until we started burning,” recalls Lampa, “I could

Photo: William

Hall

The woodland flora that came up after a

burning, Lampa discovered, “were a thousand

times rarer and more diverse than the garlic

mustard that was there before.”


never figure out why they called it the ‘woodland sun-flower.’ It just didn’t grow in the woods.” Identifying theproblem, however, isn’t the same as fixing it. Ed Collinsexplains, “The crucial role that fire had in Midwesternwooded communities is probably something we’ve come tounderstand better in the last decade to 15 years.” The real-ization came partly from revisiting archival materials.“There were always references in the literature to the open-ness of the woods,” says Wayne Lampa, “but we just ignoredthem.” Settler diaries, surveyor’s notes, and early newspa-pers corroborate what we now know to be true: Illinoisburned and it burned often.The flora also tell the story of fire’s importance. Nature

could not have designed a better tree for ensuring that thearea around it burns than the bur oak—a strange hybrid offlame-retardant trunk and incendiary leaves. Then therewere the data that emerged by accident. When WayneLampa was conducting his prairie burns for DuPage County,rather than dig a fire break at the point where the prairieended, he let the fire burn through to the small creek,which flowed several hundred yards back in the adjacentwoods. The woodland flora that came up after a burning,he discovered, “were a thousand times rarer and morediverse than the garlic mustard that was there before.Things we had never seen in the area began cropping up.”In today’s forest preserve districts, the woods are no

longer burned by accident. In fact, so firmly has the idea ofburning taken root in the orthodoxy of ecological restora-tion, it’s been translated into jargon. Lighting a fire is nowcalled burn management. And listening to a bunch of ecol-ogists talk about burn management, one gets a sense ofwhat it must have been like to hang out in medical circles

right after the discovery of penicillin. “It’s night and day inthe forest preserves,” says Wayne Lampa enthusiastically.“Take the Indian plantain. Back in early 70s we used to getreal excited when we saw them; they were so rare. For awhile they disappeared entirely. Now they’re everywhere.” Lampa’s confidence in prescribed fire is shared by wild-

lands managers throughout the Chicago Wilderness region.Perhaps the most common comment I heard was this: “We thought ______ (fill in the rare species) was gone, butsince we’ve started burning it’s come back.” This enthusi-asm speaks to another benefit of burn management. Inevery claim of miraculous resurrection, every breathlesscomparison of before to after, lurks another resource thatfire has restored—hope.

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Land managers have an outstanding safety record with prescribedfire. Backfires and good planning keep the fire contained.




Well, prairie plants may have regenerative root sys-tems that quickly resprout after fire, and bur oaksmay have flame-retardant bark, but all animals, with theexception of certain barnacles, possess an even greateradvantage when it comes to dealing with fire—they canmove. This ability, combined with the average burn’sstately pace of a quarter of a mile per hour, allows mostwoodland and prairie animals to regard fire with a stun-ning lack of anxiety. If you ever had any doubt thatBambi was just a cartoon, says ecologist Wayne Lampa,all you have to do is observe a real deer in a fire. “Theyjust don’t seem concerned; a lot of times they’ll just hopright over the fire line.” And as for Thumper and the lit-tle woodland creatures—they have other defenses as well.“Animals have keener senses, so they know in advancethat a fire is coming,” says Pam Benjamin, a botanist withthe Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, “and a lot of thesmaller mammals move underground. Just one inch belowthe surface and you can’t even detect a temperature dif-ference.” Does this mean that animals never lose theirlives in fires? Well okay, no. “In 10 years of burning, I’veseen one snake and one frog killed,” says Pam Benjamin.She points out that the occasional snake or mouse founddead after fires may well have been sick or dead beforethe fire came through. If the fire didn’t get it, somepredator would have.

One thing is certain though. The losses among verte-brate species pale next to the massive casualties suffered bytheir exoskeletal cousins. The irony is that most of therarer insects in the Chicago Wilderness are dependent onhabitats which will disappear without regular burn man-agement. Call it the catch-22 of the Karner blue. The Karner blue, an endangered species of butterfly

found at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, feedsexclusively on a flower called the lupine. The lupinedepends on fire, while the Karner is what biologistseuphemistically call fire-sensitive. It attaches its egg casesto the stalks of dune grasses to overwinter; the grass rootssurvive a fall burn, the eggs tend not to. While a lot ofattention is paid to the Karner because of its rarity, most ofthe insects in the Chicago Wilderness region sing the sameKarner blues— “I’m just a fire-sensitive arthropod in a fire-dependent world.”But Ron Panzer, a conservation biologist with

Northeastern Illinois University, hears no sorrow in thatsong. While true that individual insects die by the thou-sands, populations of grassland dependent species—even theKarner blue—are entirely dependent on burn management.Panzer conducted one of the most comprehensive studies ofinsect sensitivity to fire. He discovered that roughly half of all insect species he studied were fire negative—meaningtheir populations decline immediately succeeding a burn.

What About Bambi?

300 million years agoThe atmosphere is sorich in oxygen—30 per-cent—that a world liketoday’s would havebeen impossible. Fireswould not stop; every-thing burnable burnedrepeatedly, as soon as it grew and was ignited.

200 million years agoDue to changes in theinteractions betweenanimals, plants and fire,the Earth’s oxygen lev-els dropped to about 21percent of the atmos-phere, as it is today.

15 to 5 million years agoThe world’s grasslandcommunities devel-oped, with fire a cru-cial component, lead-ing to new forms of lifeincluding the largegrazing animals, andhumans.

12,000 BC—1900 ADAs the glaciers retreat-ed, human-set firesjoined lightning-set.Studies of fire scarsand even-aged standsof old timber showconsistent patterns offire frequency.

1800sEuro-American settlerslearned burning fromthe Indians, but a cul-tural reaction againstfire, starting in Europein the 1800s, was soonreflected here in con-troversy over fire.

1907Yale’s H. H. Chapmanstudies the burning ofsouthern pine by tim-ber growers to prepareseedbeds for longleafpine and to preventpine from being takenover by hardwoods andbrush. As a result, he

F I R E

The first burns for prairie restoration were done by Aldo Leopold (in the white hat)and others at the University of Wisconsin in the 1930s.

Photo: University of Wisconsin, Madison (Arboretum).

The History of


Of the other half, 25 percent were fire-neutral, and 25 per-cent actually increased their numbers. The findings weresurprising only in that the fire-positive group was so large.“It probably just means that they’d recovered so fast that bythe time we measured them, their populations had actuallyincreased,” Panzer says.And this is the reasonfor Panzer’s nonchalanceabout the fates of indi-vidual insects. “If youknow anything aboutinsect fecundity,” saysPanzer, “you know onefemale can literally laythousands of eggs.” Evenif a species lost numbersoriginally, says Panzer,“most affected popula-tions recover by thefollowing spring andevery species surveyedrecovered completelywithin two to threeyears.” Given just a cou-ple years’ recovery time,every single insectspecies becomes fireneutral. But that’s theshort run. In the long

run, the species that depend on grassland and oak woodlandhabitats die out completely in the absence of fire.Bottom line: sure you lose insects in each fire, maybe

the occasional snake or frog, but that’s a small sacrifice forsaving an endangered habitat from destruction. As Ron

Panzer argues, what area few individuals when“the data suggest thatwe’ve lost entire speciesdue to fire suppres-sion?” Conversely, themore we expand thenative ecosystems byrestoring the traditionalfire regimes, the morewe’ll discover whatWayne Lampa discov-ered after instituting aburn program atWaterfall Glen—notonly do rare plantspecies come back, butanimals and insectsreturn as well. “For theanimals and insects,”he explains, “it’s sort oflike Field of Dreams. Ifyou restore it, they willcome.” —AB

champions prescribedburning.

19105,000,000 acres of nat-ural forests burn,3,000,000 in Idaho andMontana alone, in theBig Blowup. 78 fatalitiesreported.

1916US National Park Serviceis established andadopts strict fire sup-pression policy.

1921US Forest Service stan-dardizes a policy ofintensive fire suppres-sion.

1943Forest Service Chief LyleWatts encourages theexperimental use of prescribed burning.

1945“Smokeythe Bear”ads appear.

1949-51Prof. Harold Biswell ofthe University ofCalifornia researches theuse of prescribed burn-ing and almost loses hisjob because the Schoolof Forestry fears beingassociated with pre-scribed fire.

1951-52Ed Komarek of the pri-vate Tall TimbersResearch Station inFlorida advocates pre-scribed fire worldwide,based on studies madeby the station.

1962A. L. Shiff’s book, Fireand Water, shows thatproductivity in southernpine forests was

increased by periodiccontrolled burning.

1965Biswell’s studies showthat giant sequoiasdepend on fire to killthe seedlings of com-peting tree species.

1968National Park Servicepublishes new policiesrecognizing fire as anatural phenomenon.

1969Forest Service admitssome fire is good in itsbulletin Protecting theForests from Fire. CookCounty Forest Preservesare on record conduct-ing regular controlledburns as part of landmanagement policy.However, all wildfiresand vandal fires are tobe extinguished as soonas possible.

1972Illinois Department ofConservation incorpo-rates controlled burns aspart of its land manage-ment policy.

1974Illinois Beach State Parkbegins controlled burns.

1986Indiana Dunes NationalLakeshore incorporatesprescribed fire as part ofits land managementprogram.

1988One-third ofYellowstone’s 2.2 millionacres are scorched by248 wildfires that are atfirst allowed to burn.

1989Report of the US FirePolicy Review Committeeconcludes that the pub-lic did not understand

fire terminology or poli-cy and advises that pre-scribed and natural firesbe used more often toreduce hazardous fuelbuild-up.

1996DuPage and Cook CountyForest Preserve Districtsimpose a moratorium onprescribed burning as aresult of criticism in thepress. The DuPage mora-torium is soon lifted.

1996A paper in Sciencereports that the sup-pression of wildfires ledto the loss of a third ofthe plant species inWisconsin prairies overthe past 50 years.

1997Cook County FPDrescinds a moratorium onprescribed burning afterits Community Advisory

Council votes 13 to 1 toresume the process. Nowprescribed burning isconducted by all county,state, and federal con-servation agencies in theChicago region.

—Eugene Bender

Barbara Turner burns her patch of oakwoods in Long Grove, where theVillage secures annual burn permits forconservation-minded homeowners.

George Catlin, “Prairie Bluffs Burning, on the Upper Missouri,” oil on canvas, 0176.12134, from the Collection of Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahom

a.

Historic paintings. George Catlin left his job as a lawyer in the east to paint

the Native Americans beyond the frontier—and their prairie habitat. He was

struck by the variety of fire. Nonchalant animals paid little attention in low

fuel areas or on mild days (above) while a raging fire in heavy fuel (page 4)

was a force to be reckoned with.

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Numbers of seeds per teaspoon: cream false indigo—250; stiff gentian—20,000; Culver's-root—60,000.

eturning home from awalk in the Swisswoods half a centuryago, George deMestral found hisclothes and his dog’s

coat covered with burs. While yankingout the clinging seed capsules, deMestral grew curious. He popped oneunder a microscope and discovered thehook-like structures that, after muchexperimentation, he mimicked in asynthetic fabric. George de Mestralinvented Velcro.Seeds are local miracles: plants as

perfect, curled embryos along withtheir food supply, snug in protectivecoats, equipped with imaginativetransport. They are also internally pro-grammed. The embryos of mosttemperate-zone seeds stay deathly dor-mant—sometimes for years—untilenvironmental signals break the spell.Seeds of the weedy mullein, forinstance, won’t grow in a crowd. Theybide their time in the soil until thespot is shaken up by some misfortune,then grab the prime real estate beforeanyone else can. The apple doesn’t fall far from the

tree, but where does the neighborhoodraccoon then drop it? Seeds and fruitsare forever taking advantage of wind,water, and the outsides and insides ofanimals.

WIND. The seeds of dandelions,milkweed, cottonwoods, and blaz-

ingstars have “parachutes” to facilitateair travel. Maple and ash trees producesamaras (alias helicopters), single-winged fruits structured to twirl ondescent and keep the seed briefly aloft.Hop hornbeams and others have seedssurrounded by thin membranes thataid gliding. Some wind-dispersed seedsare simply light and aerodynamic, likethose of many grasses; some are smallalmost to the vanishing point. Orchidseeds could be mistaken for dust.

WATER. Many plants of wet habi-tats, such as marsh marigold andloosestrife, have seeds with corky coatsthat keep them on top of the water forweeks or months. Sedge seeds fre-quently have waxy coats and seedpodswith air pockets that lend buoyancy.

ANIMALS. George de Mestral, hisdog, and you share this at least: you alldisperse seeds. Fruit and seed adapta-tions for clinging to fur or cloth arevexingly common. Walk through awoodland or prairie in early fall andspend your evening stripping off ticktrefoil pods. If you don’t want to partic-ipate, smooth clothes arerecommended.Animals carry seeds more deliber-

ately, too. Birds are renowned for theirfruit and seed consumption, squirrelsfor their acorn habits. Even some rep-tiles have a taste for fruit and seeds.Countless seeds perish on this alimen-tary journey but others come out theother end in good shape. They can be

even the better for it, gaining in ger-mination potential. Buckthorn berriesact as laxatives, speeding their seeds’trip through the digestive tract andlimiting damage.

Humans transport valued seedsintact, planting them where desired.Other animals might cache seeds andthen not return for them. Or theymight eat only a portion of the seed,leaving enough for germination. Antsare notorious for this. “They carry offthe seeds of spring flora like trout lilyand trillium and eat the ‘ant candy’,”says Susanne Masi, research associateat the Chicago Botanic Garden, refer-ring to a fat-rich attachment to theseed. Thus do ants incidentally plantthe rest.The time has come. When you walk

the woods and grasslands, tune in tothe miracle of seeds.

ThinkingLike a Seed

by Robyn Flakne

Illustrated by Sue Wegener

RR

Photo: Marlene Nowak


F A L L 1 9 9 8 11

Let’s say you have some seed ofnative species and a perfectplace to restore these plants.Let’s say you know what it takes forthe seeds to germinate and grow. Areyou ready to begin?Not so fast, some experts say. You

have the right species, but do you havethe right genes? The genes withinseeds determine the limits of the adultplant’s tolerance to environmental cir-cumstances. The tolerance limits ofindividuals determines the resilienceof populations buffeted by environ-mental change. The population’scollective resilience is the fate of thespecies. Conservationists seek to pre-serve each species’ unique system ofgenetic diversity, to walk the linebetween too much inbreeding and toomuch outbreeding.Most plant species are distributed

discontinuously. They grow in patches,often widely separated, and sometimesin very different habitats from oneanother. Over the generations, somegenes will come to predominate in onepopulation and others in the next.These genes are often the ones thatgive each population the chops to sur-vive the range of weather, disease, soilconditions, and other ecological fac-tors peculiar to its own spot. JimReinartz, senior scientist and residentbiologist at the University ofWisconsin’s Milwaukee Field Station,tells of white cedar trees growing inadjacent uplands and wetlands.“When their seeds were mixed andsown into both habitats, they germi-nated well only in the habitat fromwhich they were collected,” he notes.Now and then populations experi-

ence “gene flow.” Pollen from onegroup will fertilize a flower in another,or seed from one group will land andgrow amidst the other, and the popu-lation will pass around fresh genes.But how often this happens dependson how each species manages itsreproductive affairs. Some plants pri-marily pollinate themselves, or aremost frequently pollinated by a closeneighbor, as when a bee visits one

flower, then carries its pollen to thenearest like flower. In contrast toinsect-pollinated species, wind-dis-persed pollen might fertilize eithernearby or distant plants. The seedsthemselves also vary in the distancethey travel.Most prairie grasses, for instance,

rely on wind to arrange their trysts andusher away their offspring. For them,genes will be readily traded with neigh-boring populations. Plants of specializedhabitats like bogs are often more cir-cumspect and clannish, preferring tokeep their pollen and offspring close.Most likely, their scattered populationswill have little internal genetic varia-tion, but each population will begenetically distinct from the one in thenext town, or the next state.Stern as parents, geneticists lecture

about the consequences of plant sex-ual experimentation. This couple aretoo similar; that pair are too different;it will never work. Poor matches aredoomed to gradations of sterility, still-birth, genetic disease, awkwardproblem children.Inbreeding—crosses between close

relatives—is a worry for populations ofgregarious plant species that, havingbeen cornered and boxed into themodern landscape, suffer an embargoon their pollen and seed trade. MarcyDe Mauro, superintendent of planningand development with the ForestPreserve District of Will County,found that the only lakeside daisiesleft alive in Illinois in the 1980s wereso alike that they were biologicallyincapable of producing offspring whencrossed together. Marlin Bowles, plantconservation biologist at the MortonArboretum, discovered that Mead’smilkweeds in Illinois were in a similarpredicament. De Mauro and Bowlesresuscitated the Illinois populations ofthese species by importing seeds fromout of state.Yet outbreeding—crossing plants

from distant locations or differenthabitats—could also cause harm. DanGustafson, a doctoral candidate atSouthern Illinois University, has

DESIGNER GENESDESIGNER GENES

Desmodium canadenseSHOWY TICK TREFOIL

Asclepias syriacaCOMMON MILKWEED

Desmodium TICK TREFOILhitching a ride…Photo: M

ary A. Root/Root Resources



For use in restoration mixes, the seeds of many legumes must be scratched by sandpaper or they will not germinate. Those of New Jersey tea must be plunged into boiling water.

conducted field and greenhouse exper-iments with Indian grass and bigbluestem. “Plants from Kansas per-formed differently than plants fromIllinois,” he says. “The introduction of foreign genes (such as those fromKansas) could disrupt the geneticcomposition of Illinois populations.”Aggressive, competitive non-localplants could overrun the natives andmight later prove unable to handle anIllinois environmental extreme. Infact, so wary of the potential for out-breeding are some land managers thatthe Illinois Department of NaturalResources is currently removing 16

acres of cultivated prairiegrasses in Vermilion Countyand replanting with nativesto preserve the integrity of a

nearby prairie remnant.When plants that are adapted to

contrasting environments interbreed,it is possible for their offspring to bedealt such ill-assorted genes that theyare misfits in their mother’s habitat,their father’s habitat, or any habitat inbetween. “This can occur at any spa-tial scale,” says Jim Reinartz. “Onehypothetical extreme is crossingWisconsin plants with North Carolinaplants. The populations are adapted tovery different seasonal rhythms, so theseeds might not know when to germi-nate. Another extreme could occuramong plants that appear to be in thesame population, but that are growingin subtly different habitats.”To navigate these hazards, some

experts exuberantly recommend thatyou get to know a species’ breedingsystem, population dynamics, andevolutionary lineages. Is such inti-macy with all potential restorationtargets possible? There are more than2,000 plant species in the Chicagoregion. Unveiling all these mysteriesfor just one of them will get you amaster’s degree, at a minimum.At Goose Lake Prairie Nature

Preserve near Joliet, Dan Gustafson istracing gene flow between Illinois bigbluestem and cultivated big bluestemfrom Nebraska, a population growingfrom seeds that were planted there inthe 1980s.

Kayri Havens, manager of endan-gered species research at the ChicagoBotanic Garden, is exploring whetherinbreeding might explain the low seedset that Marlin Bowles observed insmall populations of the endangeredeastern white-fringed orchid. She isexamining whether two species oflobelia with different pollination sys-tems — the cardinal flower pollinatedby hummingbirds and the great bluelobelia pollinated by bees — show dif-ferences in the crossing distance atwhich harmful effects of outbreeding,if any, appear. Bowles and Havenshave jointly investigated the strangecase of the Pitcher’s thistle. Bowlesrestored this federally endangeredplant to Illinois Beach State Park,where it had been extirpated. He usedseeds from the nearest existing siteswhere the plant was found, inWisconsin and Indiana. By everymeasure, the plants from Indiana havefared better. Yet Havens’ geneticanalysis show that the Wisconsinplants are more closely related to theoriginal Illinois Pitcher’s thistle.When creating seed-collecting

policies, agencies concerned withecological restoration must distillvats of biological knowledge, theory,and controversy. Local agencies typi-cally stipulate that seed should comefrom sites as ecologically similar tothe restoration site as practicable.They suggest that when plants areintroduced to a site, seed should becollected from more than one appropriate source. Some also imposegeographic boundaries such thatseeds must be collected within a 25- or 50-mile radius of the restora-tion site.Current policy cannot address all

the shadings, cannot account for allthe pollination and dispersal habitsand aberrations, all the geneticintrigue of plants. But in ChicagoWilderness, local seed sources for mostspecies are still abundant and variousenough to support both continuedresearch and seed collection withinthe ethical boundaries of presentunderstanding.

SEEDFALLThroughout the summer seeds havedeveloped, ripened, and been col-lected, each type at its own pace, untilnow they seem all at once to rush tothe end of the season. We seed collec-tors are compelled, like all harvesters,to work long hours in shortening days.But the work brings pleasure, like thesilken feel of stripping Indian grassseeds into our palms. Like the raspingrubbing of seed heads back and forth,back and forth, over a cleaning screen.Rapt in our own task, we might forgetthat others toil with us, then weglance up and right into the eyes ofone another. And smile, knowing weshare the delicious joy of direct skincontact with wildness past, present,and future. At the end of the day, weluxuriate in our fatigue. It is fall, timeto gather together those things wecherish. Happy harvesting.

Impatiens capensisJEWELWEED

Robert Flesvig and Mary Ann Skvaraseparating seed from chaff.


F A L L 1 9 9 8 13

Maps: Lynda Wallis

1

2

3

4

Into the WildO U R G U I D E T O T H E W I L D S I D EBring field guides and binoculars—or just your senses and spirit.

These lands are among our best and brightest gems of ancient nature.

1 C O W L E S B O G—Porter County, IN

2 Z A N D E R S W O O D S— Cook County

3 L A K E I N T H E H I L L S F E N—McHenry County

4 G R E E N E VA L L E Y F O R E S T P R E S E R V E—DuPage County

Phot

o: J

im N

ache

l


Amicrophone in front of my face and a 40-pound water-pack on my back. Every burn is an event, but today acamera crew from Bill Kurtis’s “New Explorers” televisionseries is here to record the burn, and we feel we’re makingnews as well.

Gensburg Markham Prairie south of Chicago is that rarestof entities—a large, high-quality prairie. Our plan calls forburning the center of the site, more than 50 acres.

A first-class burn crew has been assembled, a mix of pro-fessionals and volunteers—though today, no matter whatyour title, we are all volunteers. We wear hard hats, Nomexsuits, and have specialized tools. Nomex is a special flame-retardant cloth. Two leaders carry drip torches—canisters ofgasoline and diesel fuel used to spread the fire. Six of us carrybackpack pumps to spray water. Others have flappers or swat-ters. These are flat slabs of rubber attached to stout five-foothandles and used to smother weaker flames. We also have a50-gallon water tank with a 100-foot hose mounted on apick-up truck.

Everyone must have an assignment. There will be twoteams, one led by Bill Sluis, the steward of nearby PaintbrushPrairie; the other led by Marcy De Mauro, superintendent ofplanning and development with the Will County ForestPreserve District.

A Prairie Dies

Marcy needs two people for a special assignment. A lineof telephone poles cuts across the burn area. Thesepoles must be kept wet, and this assignment will isolate thetwo who undertake it. Chuck, a burn veteran, volunteersimmediately. When no one else seems eager to accept thisassignment, I volunteer too. Marcy cross-examines me aboutmy burn experience. I tell her that I have participated inabout 100 burns and have taken the S-190 US Forest Servicefire training course.

With all the preparations complete, the crew moves to itsstations. Marcy’s team covers the east and south sides of theprairie. Bill leads his team, with the camera crew in tow, eastalong the north end.

Wildernessby Joe Neumann

theWorking

PRAIRIE BURN

Chuck and I assume our positions by the poles towards thewest. Our instructions call for us to wet the telephone poleswhen the fire approaches. As little time as possible must beleft before the flames arrive for the sun and wind to dry thepoles. A special wetting agent is added to our packs to makethe water “wetter,” that is, less quick to evaporate. Chuckand I have two waterpacks apiece, one to wet the poles andone as a back-up.

Firebreaks

In preparation for the burn, the stalks at the base of thepoles have been mowed down. The borders of the burnarea receive a similar treatment. A 10-foot wide mowed stripencircles the entire burn area: a fire break. Cutting down thestalks that fuel the fire cuts down the height of the flames.We will extinguish the flames once they enter this strip.

Ideally, the wind should be of moderate, steady strengthand from a definite direction. Today’s wind is predominatelyfrom the west with a slightly southern bent. This wind willpush a free-roaming fire to the northeast, so that sectionmust be secured.

Starting at the northeast corner of the burn area, Bill’screw will work its way west, igniting the north side. Theflames will be allowed to advance to the south but will besnuffed as they back into the mowed strip to the north.Marcy and her team will proceed south igniting the easternand then the southern edges of the burn area. The flamesMarcy sets will be allowed to burn to the west against thewind but will be snuffed out to the east. The pick-up truckand its water tank is assigned to Marcy’s team since the winddirection will make the fire along the eastern break the mostdifficult one to control. The expressway east of the prairie isanother cause for concern. Not only the flames, but thesmoke they create, must be carefully controlled.

First Puff of Smoke

From my perspective, the crew assembling at the north-east corner of the burn area appears little larger thanants. They huddle for what seems like the longest time.

F A L L 1 9 9 8 15

Finally they disperse and assume their positions. A puff ofsmoke signals ignition. Now vigorous flames are visible.Marcy’s crew on the east edge of the burn area soon disap-pears from sight behind some subtle slope. But Bill’s crewto the north is fully visible.

When a fire acts ornery, it forces you into close contact withit. Heat tugs the skin of your face taut then. But little sign ofsuch a situation is evident today. Bill’s crew is strung out alongthe line while Bill advances west in an orderly fashion with hisdrip-torch. He ignites about 20 feet along the burn line, thenpauses to allow his team to control the flames before headvances again. Bill and his team, like burn crew cowboys,have this flaming herd of steers moving just the right way.Great bales of smoke rise from the flames, swelling into anappropriately prairie-sized mass, dwarfing the crew below it.

Behind me is a gate. Today is Saturday, and the prairiehas visitors. The first ones to arrive are a couple whosometimes help weed the prairie. They bring their dogsand are eager to see how the burn is doing. Next comes aman on his way to Kankakee who stops by for a lookaround. And then there is a mother with two teenagedaughters.

“Why are you burning the prairie?” the mother asks mein a concerned tone as her two anxious-eyed daughterslook on. I give her the short course. “Because the prairielikes to be burned.”

Slowly and carefully, the burn teams make progress.Marcy’s group completes the eastern fire break and beginsthe southern one. The other team has progressed halfwayalong the northern border of the burn area.

A broad “black zone” now exists at the edges of the burnarea. A black zone would be the safest place to stand if youwere ever caught in a fire. All the fuel there has alreadybeen incinerated. Reaching such an area, a fire can donothing but die. The flames set by the teams have all beentailored so that this black zone grows ever broader andmore encompassing. The more progress the flames make,the more they are contained.

The burn teams are busy constructing a cage for the fire,and Marcy approaches at the head of a procession of burnteam, pick-up truck, and camera crew. They are closenow…let them get a little closer. A little closer still. Time tosoak those poles.

Once each pole is wet all the way around, I rush on to thenext one. The water sloshing about in the pack throws offmy strides.

Thanks to a cooperative wind, the entire north burn teamhas time to help protect the poles. Gary and his waterpackhelp Chuck. Steve rakes away the mowed stalks at the baseof the poles. Bill ignites the areas about the poles so thateach will be protected from the main fire by its own blackzone. We are being waved out of the way now. The main firecloses in on us. I give a pole a last squirt and then dart backto the safety of the firebreak.

Author Joe Neumann, after the fire. For another photo of this burn,see page 32.

Fire Let Loose

The fire is let loose. Driven by the full force of thewind, the flames barrel by the poles, and then blastoff. Picture a Michael Jordan slam-dunk. In a flash theflames vanish into dense billows of smoke. Red andyellow tint this cloud’s edges while orange-brown packs itsinterior.

There is little time to gawk at the sight. For all the mainfire’s ferociousness, a broad black zone corrals it. But thebackfire still working its way west needs to be extinguished.Backing against the wind, with only the stubble of themowed strip to fuel it, this fire is no match for the entirecrew. We snuff it with ease.

In the wake of the fire, everything is charred—except forthe poles. The Potawatomi word for prairie translates as“burnt-over bare ground.” This feature—not the vastnessnor the luxurious growth nor the great herds of bison—isthe trait that Native Americans most associated withprairie. This burnt-over bare ground does not look likemuch now, but as sure as spring, the sun will warm thisexposed soil and bring forth a bounty of blooms.

Joe Neumann has volunteered to restore native habitats,mainly in the Palos area of Cook County, since 1990. He alsoserves as steward of the Ashburn Prairie in Marquette Park.

It’s a misnomer: there’sno bog at Cowles Bog.Named in honor ofHenry Cowles, the Universityof Chicago professor whosestudies of plant successionamong the Indiana Duneshelped develop ecology as a science, Cowles Bog isactually a fen—a relatedand equally unique wetlandcommunity. But the areawas misnamed years ago,and the name stuck.

Cowles Bog, part of theIndiana Dunes NationalLakeshore, is a remnant ofthe marsh system that oncestretched from where thecity of Gary is today all theway to Michigan City. Mostof these wetlands were filledin years ago for the massiveindustries established innorthern Indiana. But sev-eral spectacular sites—including Cowles Bog—havebeen preserved and are nowadministered by the NationalPark Service.

The core of the CowlesBog area is a marsh sur-rounding a small fen. Therea stand of tamaracks andwhite pines grows on afloating mat of peat moss.A constant flow of lime-richwater from springs beneaththe mat makes this a fenrather than a bog.

The fen itself is off-limitsto the public, because of itssensitivity and thedeep muck

that visitors would have totraverse to reach it. But youmay catch glimpses of itfrom the three-mile trailthat circles the marsh. Fromthe southern leg, lookacross the marsh for a standof conifers. The Park Serviceplans to build markers alongthe trail to make the feneasy to identify.

The Cowles Bog areaoffers hikers a view of pristine beach habitat,black oak savanna, and alowland forest of red mapleand yellow birch. Startingnear the guardhouse at thenortheastern part of thesite, the trail passesthrough a marshy area andover a boardwalk. This isthe red maple forest, withdamp-loving yellow andpaper birches, trees rare inthe Chicago region. Manycinnamon ferns also growhere. The trail occasionallypasses white and red pines,markers of the area’s past.Pines were once common inthis area, before almostevery one was logged. Alonghigher, sandier ground, thetrail passes through ahealthy oak savanna.

A spur off the loop trailleads over the back dunes,dominated by black oak. Once a savanna, the areabecame overgrown with

brush after more than 30years of fire suppression. Inrecent years the ParkService has begun conduct-ing prescribed burns again,and the dunes are slowlybeing restored to nativesavanna.

The spur continues pastinterdunal ponds and overthe front dunes. After asteep climb, the trail dropsto the beach. Swimming isallowed here, though notofficially encouraged, as nolifeguards are on duty.

The wetlands of CowlesBog are home to a variety of salamanders and otherherps; a large chorus offrogs croaks all spring andsummer. The area’s manyhabitats attract a great variety of birds, includingVirginia rails, green andgreat blue herons, Easternwood-pewees, and severalspecies of hawks. Fall andspring migrations bring aneven wider variety.

Autumn is an especiallydramatic time of year, asthe thick stands of treesturn bright colors. If yourtiming is right, you mayget a glimpse of the fen’stamaracks cloaked in brightyellow.

DIRECTIONSTake I-94 east into Indiana.Exit at US 20; head eastabout 1.5 miles to theintersection with MineralSprings Rd. Turn north(left). Go straight at theintersection with DunesHwy; just over the RRtracks is the first of twoparking areas for CowlesBog. The second is far-ther north, to the rightof the Dune Acresentrance station. Bikesare not allowed on thetrails.

— Chris Larson

C O W L E S B O G— Porter County, IN

Lake Mic

higan

Cowles Bog Trail

Bethlehem Steel

Park Headquarters

Oak Hill Road

Rt. 12

Mineral Springs Road

N


W O R K P A R T I E S

COOK: Bluff Spring Fen: First and third Saturday of everymonth, 9 a.m.Take Rte. 20 or 25 to southeast sideof Elgin. Turn onto Bluff City Blvd.and head for the main entrance of the Bluff City Cemetery (east of Rte.25). Enter the cemetery, and followthe green oak tree signs to the smallparking lot with the split rail fence.Contact Mel Manner: (847) 464-4426.

Swallow Cliff:Nov 29 and Dec 27, 1 p.m.; Dec 5, 9 a.m. Park at Cherry Hill parking loton west side of 104th Ave., 1/2 milesouth of Rte. 83. Contact John O'Lear: (815) 838-2320.

Kloempken Prairie: Nov 15, 22, Dec 6, 20, 9 a.m. Meet at Oakton Community College,Parking lot C, College Dr., Des Plaines.Contact Bob Hostettler: (847) 679-2170.

Poplar Creek:Nov 22, 28, Dec 6, 12, 19, 26, Jan 3,9, 17 9 a.m.Located on west side of Rte. 59, justnorth of Rte. 8 (Golf Rd). Park acrossfrom the pavilion. Contact JillFlexman: (847) 836-7443.

Deer Grove:First Saturday and third Sunday ofevery month, 9 a.m. Meet at Grove 5in Deer Grove West. Use the QuentinRd. entrance on the west side ofQuentin Rd., midway between Dundee Rd. and Lake-Cook Rd. Stay to the right all the way in on the service road; meet at the start of the last parking area on the right.Contact Dale Shields: (847) 634-0824.

In the 1860s, a Dutchsettler named Zandershomesteaded in thesouthern reaches of CookCounty. Long before that,the area formed the shore-line of ancient LakeChicago. The sandy soil leftbehind when the lakeretreated is the perfecthabitat for a stunning vari-ety of plants, and the siteis now known as ZandersWoods Forest Preserve.

The site, about 440 acresoverall, is evenly splitbetween woodlands andwetlands, includingmarshes and sedge mead-ows in the low-lying areas.A recent survey found aremarkable 139 nativespecies growing here.

Black and white oaksdominate the forest; thesite is noteworthy for alarge number of sassafrastrees, a tree more com-monly found in the Southand East. Also uncommonin the Chicago area, yetwell-represented here, areblack gum trees. The widevariety of trees puts on aspectacular show of colorsin the fall.

It’s been many yearssince the woodlands wereburned. As a result, they’vebecome rather dense. Wetweather nixed plans toburn portions of the arealast spring, but the ForestPreserve Districthopes toconduct aprescribedburn nextspring if theweather coop-erates.

The entire sitewas dedicated asa state naturepreserve in 1965(it’s also known asThornton-Lansing RoadNature Preserve). Many rareand showy plants can befound throughout. The but-

terfly weed’s bright orangeflowers are a commonsight most years. Severalspecies of lupines, gen-tians, and blazing starsgrow here. So does the fascinating Indian pipe, a plant with no chlorophyllthat gets its nourishmentthrough a parasitic rela-tionship with tree roots.

Zanders Woods is also afern lover’s delight, includ-ing cinnamon, ostrich, and royal ferns. Many ofthese are typically foundonly in the sandy soils ofnorthern pine forests. Fernsare not common in theChicago region, except inthis area and closer to theIndiana Dunes.

Several other forest preserves are adjacent ornearby; this concentrationof natural areas brings anexcellent variety of birds toZanders, particularly duringthe breeding season. Scarlettanagers, oven birds, andwood thrushes are just afew of the many speciesnoted here. It’s also afavorite stop for warblersduring migration.

Despite the lack of recentburns, experts still considerZanders a very healthy site,though not immune to theproblems that many pre-serves face, includingdamage

caused by occasional off-road vehicles, bicycles, andmore frequent harm to rareplants caused by hungrydeer.

Hiking is the onlyallowed activity since thesite is a state nature pre-serve. An access road thatruns south from Thornton-Lansing Road is gated andclosed to cars, but open tohikers. Several trails leadfrom this road into thewoods and wetlands.

DIRECTIONSTake I-94/Dan Ryan southto the Calumet Expressway(I-94). Head east on 80/94(Tri-state Tollway) brieflybefore exiting southboundon Torrence Ave. After halfa mile, turn west (right) onThornton-Lansing Rd. After1.5 miles, cross an express-way; just past this is anentrance to Wampum LakeForest Preserve, on theright. Park here and walkacross Thornton-Lansing Rd.to Zanders Woods.

— Chris Larson


COOK: Zanders Woods:Dec 5, Jan 23, 9 a.m. Contact Joe & Marlene Nowak: (708) 333-3642 or Paul Strand: (708) 868-0606 before 6 p.m.

Somme Woods:Nov 22, 9 a.m. Enter preserve onnorth side of Dundee Rd., just east of Waukegan Rd. Contact NorthBranch Restoration Project hotline:(773) 878-3877.

North Park Village NatureCenter: Nov 15, 18, 22, 25, Dec 2, 5, 9, 13,16, 20, 30, Jan 6, 9, 9 a.m. Located at 5801 North Pulaski, 1 1/2blocks south of Peterson. Followsigns to nature center. Contact Wayne Svoboda: (847) 675-3622.

KANE:Helm Woods:Third Saturday of every month, 9 a.m.Located on Helm Rd., east of Rte. 25in Carpentersville. Contact DonnaVeeneman: (847) 428-3475.

Campton Hills Park:First Saturday of every month, 9 a.m.From St. Charles, go west on Rte. 64one mile past Randall Rd., and turnleft at Campton Hills Rd.; continue

past Peck Rd. Use second entranceto Campton HillsPark on left. Call (630) 513-3338.

Z A N D E R S W O O D S— Cook County

Thornton

–Lansing

Road

Thorncreek Road

183rd Street

Calumet Expressway

I-394

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F A L L 1 9 9 8 17

Twelve thousand yearsago, the southeast corner of McHenryCounty was covered by anice sheet roughly 5,000feet thick. Some tonnage!The rich and varied soilsand unique topography leftby the retreating glaciersmade the area ripe for theevolution of tremendousbiodiversity. One jewel ofthe realm is Lake-in-the-Hills Fen, 240 acres of rarewild nature, home to seeps,hanging fens, and 404species of plants. Purchasedby a consortium of organi-zations and governmentagencies and managed bythe McHenry County Conser-vation District, the land wasdedicated as a state naturepreserve in 1990. Recently,the Conservation Districtpurchased 131 adjoiningacres which will serve as animportant buffer and habitatextension.

Come here to learn aboutfens and seeps. Large graveldeposits left by the glaciersallow rain water to perco-late down until it reaches aless permeable layer, usually

clay. Choosing the path ofleast resistance, the watertravels horizontally, absorb-ing minerals and alkalinityfrom the gravel. Within thepreserve are several placeswhere the clay layer isexposed and the water isable to “seep” out. Unlikesingle-source springs, seepwater exits the ground allalong the line of theexposed clay. When theexposed clay layer lies up ahillside or near the top of ahill, the emerging waterfrom the seep runs down-hill. These geological fea-tures are called “hangingfens,” designating a wetlandon a slope. Lake-in-the-Hillshas nine seep locations andeight of them include hang-ing fens. There are only 26acres of hanging fens in thenation and Lake-in-the-Hillshas approximately four ofthem. Among the rare bio-logical communities foundat this site are graminoidfen, calcareous floatingmat, low shrub fen, calcare-ous seep, dry gravel prairie,and sedge marsh.

Fen water is alkaline(unlike a bog, which hasacidic water) and is heavilyladen with minerals. Thewater stays a constant

50°F, having traveledthrough the ground,

so it continues toflow year-round.

Not surprisingly,this rare geo-logicalecosystemharborsmany ofthesite’s16

threatened and endangeredplant species such as thefalse asphodel. The fen isalso home to the state’ssmallest dragonfly, the tinybluebell, found at only oneother site in Illinois.

Lake-in-the-Hills also har-bors prairies and gravelhills. On the south side ofthe preserve, you’ll see aberm-like hill known as an“esker.” Its north and southexposures harbor many spe-cial plants such as Hills’thistle, prairie smoke, prairiegentian, and leadplant.

Groups of volunteers havebeen working for many yearsto clear brush and inventorythe plant and animal specieshere.

Lake-in-the-Hills Fen isopen year-round during daylight hours. There are1.25 miles of mown trails,and guided nature walks areconducted at 2 p.m. thesecond Sunday of the month(May—October). Don’t missthe observation deck on anadjacent hillside, outfittedwith a descriptive plaqueand telescope by localbenefactor, Joan Larsen.

To arrange a guided walkfor private groups, includingfor hearing- or visually-impaired, call stewards Alanand Barbara Wilson at (847) 658-0024 or theMcHenry CountyConservation District (815) 678-4431.

DIRECTIONS:From Algonquin at the

junction of Rte. 31 andHuntley-Algonquin Rd. (Rte.62), travel west on Rte. 62for one mile to Pyott Rd.Head north on Pyott Rd. for1.5 miles to the entrance ofBarbara Key Park west ofPyott. Park here. A trailheadprovides access to thenature preserve to the westof the parking lot.

— Alan and Barbara Wilson

L A K E I N T H E H I L L S F E N— McHenry County


MCHENRY:Lake-in-the-Hills Fen: Every Saturday, 9 a.m.Contact Al Wilson: (847) 658-0024.

Sterne's Woods:Nov 28, Dec 5, 9 a.m.; everyWednesday, 2 p.m. Located at 330North Main St. in Crystal Lake. Contact Jim Wigman: (815) 337-3431

LAKE:Buffalo Grove Prairie:Dec 13, Jan 10, 9 a.m.Take Lake-Cook Rd. to Hastings Rd.(first street west of the RR overpassand about one mile west of theMilwaukee Rd. overpass). Turn northon Hastings into the second parkinglot on the right (second entrance onthe right past the retention pond).Park at the east end of the lot nearthe prairie. Contact Bev Hansen: (847) 272-6211.

Ryerson Conservation Area: Nov 28, Jan 23, 9 a.m.Located one mile south of Rte. 22 on the west side of Riverwoods Rd.Contact Joan Palinscar: (847) 948-0205.


Sanitary District

Observation Deck

ENTRANCE

Pyott Road

ToCrystalLake

To Lake-In-The-Hills

Crystal Lake Airport

N

BarbaraKey Park

G R E E N E VA L L E Y F O R E S T P R E S E R V E— DuPage County

The diversity of GreeneValley is what makesit special,” says ElaineTurski, who has lived adja-cent to this DuPage Countyforest preserve since 1976.

At 1,500 acres, GreeneValley is a relatively large,though little-used, preserve.

Those who know it con-sider it a recreational gemin the rough. Eight miles ofmixed crushed stone andturf trails loop in and out ofopen areas and majestic oakwoods and will eventuallyextend to the east side ofthe DuPage River. Hikersand horseback riders maycome upon fox, coyotes,and the usual raccoons,deer, and possum.

Along with its oak groves,Greene Valley has largeopen grasslands that pro-vide habitat for birds suchas savanna sparrows andbobolinks. Be on the look-out for herons and egretsalong the river and associ-ated wetland areas and forhawks soaring along thethermals.

In 1974, the ForestPreserve District developed a200-acre portion along thesouthern end of the propertyinto a sanitary landfill. Thelandfill was closed in 1997and the District has begunto redevelop the site forrecreation.

Now 190 feet tall, the hillis the second highest pointin DuPage County and oneof the highest in the state.Though the summit is notyet open to the public, thehill itself will be opened forspecial events as early asspring of 1999 when theroads leading to the topwill be re-graded for auto-mobiles. “We are doing whatwe promised we would do.It took us a little longer,but it is happening,” statedJoe Benedict, the District’sDirector of Environmental

Services.The trails and views will

be even more appealingwhen the plantings beginon the hillside. GreeneValley will be the site ofvarious test plots to ascer-tain what types of nativeplants and trees will grow inan open area subject to theconstant winds found atthat height. This is the firstplant and tree study of itstype and should, over thenext 5-10 years and longer,produce results that willimprove the habitat of otherreclaimed areas. Long term,this hill should eventuallybecome an open savannablending into a forest.

At the northern end ofGreene Valley, visitors willfind large picnic sheltersand associated amenities.The Thunderbird Youth Campon the south end of theproperty has always been anactively used campground.The old farm buildings onHobson Rd. are the site ofIndian and pioneer festivals.

Note the progress of theDistrict’s prairie reconstruc-tion from the long drivewayleading to trailhead as wellas along the trail. Severalyears ago the Districtplanted white, red, and buroak trees along this drive toexpand the oak groves. Tokeep the area attractivewhile these very youngtrees grow to maturity overthe next several decades, acolorful mix of nativeforbs— yellow and purpleconeflower,monarda,black-eyed Susan, asters,prairie dock,rattlesnakemaster, andgoldenrod—was planted.These nativeplants provide

a pleasing vista as the areamakes its slow transitionback to a healthy savanna.

Trailhead parking hasbeen improved to a largepaved lot with water avail-able. Horseback riders inparticular will be pleased tolearn that the parking lothas been sealed with thegood non-slip surface thathas been used at theWaterfall Glen trailhead.

DIRECTIONS: Greene Valley is located

near the intersection of Rte. 53 and 75th St. inWoodridge, IL. The trailheadis on Greene Rd., just westof Rte. 53 on 75th St.Signs clearly mark the wayfrom that intersection.

— Kandee Haertel


DUPAGE:West Chicago Prairie:Nov 22, Dec 5, 9 a.m.Turn west on Hawthorn Lane fromRte. 59 and turn south ontoIndustrial Dr. Meet at the parking loton the east side of Industrial Dr.between Downs and Western. ContactMel Hoff: (630) 665-5183.

Springbrook Prairie:Nov 21, Dec 12, 9 a.m.Park at model airplane field lot southof 75th St. on Naperville/PlainfieldRd. Contact Joe Suchecki: (630) 369-5570.

WILL: Hickory Creek BarrensNov 21, 9 a.m.Contact Phyllis Schulte: (708) 479-1097.

Old Plank Road Trail:Dec 5, 12, 9 a.m.Contact Bud Steffan: (815) 485-0915.

“

Hobson Roa

d

NGreeneFarm

75th St.

79th St.

Trailhead

Thunderbird Rd.

87th St.

Wehrli Rd.

Branch

River

East

DuPage

u53

u53

Greene Rd.

F A L L 1 9 9 8 19

Northern Leopard FrogsLike children gathering on

the school yard for recess, largenumbers of northern leopardfrogs have congregated in thesedge meadows by their winterhome—under water. Soon theywill sink into the water for thefinal time this year, not emerg-ing until the warm days ofspring. Northern leopard frogshibernate in the icy water, bur-rowing under submerged logsand rocks at the muddy bottomof the pond. They don't breaththrough their lungs underwater,but rather absorb oxygendirectly through their skin.While the water is certainlycold—below 40°F—the deeperwater does not freeze solid.This is good news for theseamphibians who can survivebeing chilled to 30°F but perish before the temperaturereaches 28°F.

Turtles On The RocksRemember those baby snap-

ping turtles we've been follow-ing the last few issues ofChicago WILDERNESS Magazine?The youngsters are now startingtheir first winter when theyface the appealing notion ofcrawling along the muddy bot-tom and breathing throughtheir butts. What fun!Amazingly, many snappersremain active despite the frigidwater. Large snapping turtleshave been found frozen solidwithin a block of ice, fully con-scious with eyes blinking.

Frog PopsiclesSpring peepers are one of the

few animals that are able tosurvive prolonged exposure tosub-freezing temperatures.Rather than finding a (relative-ly) warm winter home on landbelow the frost line, or in waterunder the frozen ice, springpeepers spend the winter onthe surface of the forest floor,covered by the leaves that

accumulate on the soil. Herethe air temperatures oftenreach below zero and the bod-ies of the spring peepers actu-ally freeze, with ice crystalsforming inside them. Due to anatural anti-freeze made of glu-cose however, the vital fluidswithin their cells don't freezeand peepers survive theChicago Wilderness winter.

Samantha's Cousin?Witch hazel may sound like a

character on “Bewitched,” butit is really an attractive treenative to the understory of ourwooded areas. Blooming at thistime of year, later than mostflowering shrubs of the ChicagoWilderness, this short tree pro-duces slender, bright yellowblossoms. These faintly fragrantflowers are interesting in thatthey are produced only afterthe tree's toothed leaves haveturned from green to yellowand fallen to the ground.Another distinctive quality ofthe witch hazel is that its fruittakes a full year to ripen. Itssmall brown pods violentlyeject last year's shiny, blackseeds 20 to 30 feet away.

Named by early Americansettlers because it resembledthe hazel tree native to Europe,the witch hazel does not referto witchcraft or sorcery butprobably comes from the oldEnglish word meaning "tobend." The branches of theWitch hazel were made intodivining rods, used for waterwitching, an archaic term forthe practice of locating waterand minerals below the groundby means of bending sticks.

Snake HibernaculaHibernaculum is an obscure

word indicating the locationwhere an animal hibernates.This is the time of the yearwhen our local reptiles areseeking a hibernaculum inwhich to sleep through the cold

weather. Historically, hibernac-ula were often located in cracksand fissures of rocky bluffs andravines. In Chicago Wilderness,I have seen an old, crackedrailroad trestle used by manygarter and fox snakes for theirwinter home. With so many ofour natural geographic featuresdestroyed, we are fortunatethat artificial structures havevalue as a winter home to ourcold-blooded friends.

Stone FliesI'm a big fan of hot, humid

summer weather but can appre-ciate the cold temperatures fortwo reasons. First, beer stayscold on my back porch.Second, there are fewer bitingbugs. Amazingly, not all insectsdisappear during the coldmonths of late autumn andearly winter. The common stonefly is actually quite active atthis time of year. Living insmall streams, the larval stageof the stone fly is feeding onwater plants and growing larger.An important part of a freshwa-ter fish's diet, these nymphsare intolerant of polluted orpoorly oxygenated water andthus are indications of goodwater quality. Thousands ofthese creatures have benefitedfrom people working to restoreand stabilize the banks of themany streams that criss-crossthe Chicago Wilderness.

White OwlsWhen I run out of a food sta-

ple, say chips and salsa, I go tothe local grocer or conveniencestore. When snowy owls start torun out of food, they headsouth. Due to periodic fluctua-tions of the rodent populations,these large white predatorsoccasionally expand their terri-tory in search of food. Usuallyinhabiting the open plains ofthe treeless tundra, snowy owlsare often spotted in theChicago Wilderness during these

southern wanderings. On graywinter days they can sometimesbe seen sitting atop sand dunesand breakwaters along the LakeMichigan shore line.

One December day, severalyears ago during the EducationStaff Christmas Party at theField Museum, a snowy owl wasspotted sitting on the roof,outside a third floor storageroom. The following year, dur-ing the same holiday function,a group of us ventured back tothe same storage closet andpeeked out the window. Sureenough, this beautiful bird ofprey was there again, this timesitting only a few feet from thewindow, looking at us with hisvivid yellow eyes. Some thingsyou never forget.

Christmas Bird CountThis is the 99th year of a

truly wonderful event thatoccurs during our holiday sea-son. Every year since 1900,groups of bird watchers havefanned out across the continentto inventory the local avianfauna. Started in 1900 byFrank Chapman, long-timeCurator of Ornithology at theAmerican Museum of NaturalHistory, the Christmas BirdCount was organized as aprotest against the longstand-ing holiday tradition in whichorganized teams would competeto see who could slaughter themost birds in one day.Unbelievable.

The Chicago area has multipleopportunities for participatingin this year's Christmas BirdCount, with programs occurringfrom mid-December throughearly January. Some of the sitesfor the count include IndianaDunes, urban Chicago, FermiLab,and Waukegan. The best placeto learn additional sites anddetails about this valuableevent is by contacting theChicago Audubon Society at(773) 539-6793.

C A L E N D A RC A L E N D A RHere’s what’s debuting on nature’s stage in Chicago Wilderness by Jack MacRae


F A L L I N T O W I N T E R

N a t u r a l E v e n t s

F A L L 1 9 9 8 21

The flight begins in September.First one, then two, then 10 or 20and soon, a kettle of 200 broad-winged hawks (Buteo platypterus) plythe sky. They circle and ride the ther-mals created by hot air rising oversun-warmed patches of land. Rising ashigh as they can on one thermal, theythen glide from the top of the air col-umn to the base of another, risingagain into another whirl of southwardmovement.

Though solitary nesters, broad-winged hawks prefer a company ofhundreds during migration. Andhumans who look to the sky from mid-to-late September can witness one ofnature’s most fascinating displays. Anaverage of some 4,000 broad-wingsmigrate through Chicago Wildernesseach fall, in groups of hundreds or more.

Lake Michigan, the Des PlainesRiver, and other bodies of water serveas navigational tools for these small,broad-winged birds of prey with darkbrown backs, light barred breasts, andblack and white tail bands.

Glacial remnants such as ridges andmoraines at areas such as theBlackwell Forest Preserve in DuPageCounty and Glacial Park in McHenryCounty help create updrafts that liftthe broad-wings up to the thermals.

These hawks are coming from theirnorthern breeding grounds inMichigan and Canada. Some alsonested right here in the ChicagoWilderness area. For example, birdersobserved two young broad-wingedhawks in a nest in south Cook Countyin 1995. The same year, a plant sur-veyor heard the shrieking two-syllablecourtship cry of the broad-winged hawkall summer at Ryerson Woods in LakeCounty. Broad-winged hawk nests havealso been discovered within the past 10years in Will, DuPage, and McHenryCounties.

This uncommon Illinois breederwill only nest in heavily woodedareas. During courtship, the pair soarsand swoops above the woodlands.Then a small stick nest is built in thecrotch of a tree.

The female lays two to four eggs,then incubates them for 31 days.Mammals, primarily chipmunks, aswell as shrews, voles, frogs, lizards, andyoung birds serve as broad-wingedfood in summer. When the cool windscome, the hawks take wing and fly asfar south as Brazil where they dine oninsects, lizards, and frogs.

One of the premiere spots forwatching broad-wings during fall migra-tion is at Mt. Hoy in DuPage County.

This clay-capped landfill rises 150 feetabove the Blackwell Forest Preserve, 30miles west of downtown Chicago. Thehawks funnel in between the DuPageRiver on the west and the moraineridges east. Nearly 1,000 broad-wingedhawks soared in kettles over Mt. Hoyone recent September day.

Illinois Beach State Park alongLake Michigan in Lake County andGlacial Park in McHenry County aretwo other good spots for watchingbroad-winged hawks during migration.Birders find the highest point at theseparks where they sit for several hourswatching the sky.

The broad-winged hawk flightreaches its peak the last week inSeptember. Migrating hawks typicallyfly during the mid-morning hours, andstrong winds encourage their flights.

Local birding groups sponsor freehawk watching outings this time ofyear. Call an area nature center to findout if a hawk watch is scheduled nearyou. Or just pick a day with strongwinds and bring your lawn chair and athermos of liquid warmth up to one ofthe mentioned areas or any high pointnear a body of water. Then wait fornature’s spectacular free show to begin.

—Sheryl De Vore

Broad-winged Hawk: Ride the autumn thermals

Mee t your neighborsPh

oto: N

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Acad

emy of Natural Scien

ces, Philade

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Photo: B.K. Wheeler/Academ

y of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia


Some seeds will germinate only in light—others only in the dark.

If it’s Wednesday and it’s fall,chances are Joan Meersman is offseed collecting. Meersman and herable troop of volunteers collect seedsfrom rare or important plants alongthe North Branch of the ChicagoRiver for ultimate dispersal in appro-priate forest preserve areas to restoreprecious remnants of native habitatin the region. It’s all part of an imag-inative partnership involving theChicago Botanic Garden, ForestPreserve District of Cook County,and a volunteer group, the NorthBranch Restoration Project. Expertssupply lists of needed seeds—such asdropseed grass, wood anemone,meadow rue, and toothwort—andMeersman’s devoted group goes offin search of them. Early in the sea-son, the volunteers work in thewoods. As the season progresses,they spread out to the woods’ edge,and finally into the prairie—follow-ing the ripening seed.

The seeds of some plants aretrickier to find and collect thanothers. Wild geranium, for instance,has a trigger mechanism; its seeds lit-erally explode off the plant when

they’re ripe. Meersman says theywatch plants “week by week so we’resure to be there when they’re ready.”Or, if less confident they’ll be in theright place at the right time, theyhave been known to ripen the seed ina paper bag, “just close the top andcatch the seed!”

It’s not all work. There are parties,too. Processing parties. Several timesin the summer, and once in the fall,the volunteers assemble to help pre-pare the seeds for planting (see p. 12).Then the seeds are exchanged withother FPD volunteers for inclusion inthe planting mixes. Meersman notesthat the rest of the plant material—seed hulls, husks, grass stems, andbranches—is returned to the forestpreserve ecosystem, too. It’s a neatprocess, and clearly a labor of love.

Meersman says there are always sur-prises—assorted insects, mammals, andbirds that enliven the collecting trips.One time at Wayside Prairie inMorton Grove, she and another volun-teer were looking for a particular plantwhen they noticed what looked like alarge cocoon. As they edged closer, the“cocoon” revealed itself to be a little

Mee t your neighborsJoan Meersman: Collector of Seeds

H A W K N O T E S :On an October day when west or

northwesterly winds blow followingan Arctic cold front, birders come toIllinois Beach State Park to watchhawks. On the right days, birdersmight catalog up to 14 species ofhawks here including, sharp-shinnedhawk, Cooper’s hawk, goshawk,merlin, peregrine falcon, Americankestrel, broad-winged hawk, red-tailedhawk, red-shouldered hawk and, onoccasion, Swainson’s hawk, goldeneagle, bald eagle, northern harrier,and osprey.

To watch for the hawks, park at theInterpretive Center, then walk east tothe lake over a boardwalk. Find thehighest point to stand on the shore, orwalk south to the wooden tower whereyou can get an even better view.

On Sept. 18, 1992, birder Allen H. Siegle reported 14,000 broad-winged hawks moving throughsouthern Lake County, including HellerNature Center in Highland Park.

On October 15, 1995, birdersobserved a record number of hawksflying over Illinois Beach State Park.These included 9 merlins, 25 turkeyvultures, 1 osprey, 3 bald eagles, 105northern harriers, 531 sharp-shinnedhawks, 25 Cooper’s hawks, 1northern goshawk, 1 red-shoulderedhawk, and 301 red-tailed hawks. Anaverage of between 2,000 and 6,000hawks fly over Mt. Hoy near theBlackwell Forest Preserve in DuPageCounty each fall. Birders send reportsto the Hawk Migration Association ofNorth America.


Photo: Richard Jacobs/Root Resources

Cooper’s Hawk

Awalk in late fall through thebronzed prairie may bring a spe-cial delight if you are lucky. There atyour feet you may spot bits of blue skyfallen among the wine-red littlebluestem and browning dock.Gentiana puberulenta, the prairie gen-tian, blooms from August to Octoberand can survive nightime tempera-tures of 12° F.

Gentians are named for KingGentius of Illyria (northwest ofancient Greece) who supposedly dis-covered the medicinal properties ofgentians in the old world. Native peo-ples in the new world also knew theseproperties. Prairie gentian is called“Pezhuta-zi” by the Dakota people,which means yellow medicine, a refer-ence to the color of the roots used tomake tonics to help digestion. TheWinnebago call it “Makan chahiwi-cho” which means blue blossommedicine.

There are seven gentians native tothe Chicago region. Prairie gentianhas the largest flowers and thedeepest, richest color. It grows 8 to 20inches tall in dry to mesic prairies.

Six different species of bumblebeeshave been observed pollinating prairiegentians, and the larva of two mothsare known to feed on them as well.One is a tiny 1/8 to 1/4 inch longgreen caterpillar with rusty chevronsand the other is a black and graybanded wooly bear type. Tiny wingedseeds develop in the two-parted cap-sule and are spread by the wind in lateOctober and November.

To propagate gentians, sow theirseeds immediately in the prairie underthe shaded edges of other plants likelittle bluestem or June grass. They canalso be sown in raised beds of rich,moist soil, mulched with some curled,dry oak leaves or evergreen boughsand covered with mesh netting. Theygerminate when March nights reach35° to 40° F and days are warmer.Mist them through the netting andtransplant the seedlings out duringtheir third year.

Gentians, as a group, are not espe-cially common although in properhabitats large populations may occur.Fringed and stiff gentians are biennialso their flowering is erratic and incon-sistent. Prairie gentians, however, areperennial and grow only in the deepsoils of mesic or dry prairies. Sincethese plants and their habitats are rarein the Chicago Wilderness, it isimportant to protect them and try toincrease gentian populations inrestoration areas by seed dispersal andnursery-grown plants.

Gentians are creatures of the sun-shine. They close their flowers atnight or when it is cloudy by an intri-cate, spiral folding which is a wonderto behold. Bumblebees and butterfliesoften sleep folded in the flowers oncold nights.

So lovely are these flowers and sorich their color that many have beenmoved to capture them in verse,including these below by poet WilliamCullen Bryant.

Thou waitest long, and com’st aloneWhen woods are bare and

birds have flown,And frosts and shortening

days portendThe aged year is near his end.Then doth thy sweet and quiet eyeLook through its fringes to the sky,Blue—blue—as if that sky let fallA flower from its cerulean wall.

— Patricia K. Armstrong

brown bat, which, frightened, flewaway right over their heads. Anothertime, the volunteers flushed out threeyoung woodcocks, which scamperedout around their feet.

Meersman also helps coordinate asort of foster parent program forseedlings. She obtains young plants,grown at the Botanic Garden fromthe rare seed she’s collected, and distributes them among a list of vol-unteers who adopt the plants intotheir own yards. Ultimately, the vol-unteers harvest the seeds, return thoseto Meersman, and she incorporatesthem into the North Branch restora-tion seed mixes.

How did this remarkable woman,now 68 and grandmother of 17, learnall this? “I’m strictly a rank amateurwho loves getting more knowledge,”she explains. Meersman calls the out-doors her classroom, and creditsvarious enthusiastic naturalists whotook the time to teach her some ofwhat they knew. Roughly 10 years ago,with no particular plant background ofher own, she met Laurel Ross while ona bird walk at Chicago’s North ParkVillage Nature Center. This led to vol-unteering at the Nature Center and toaccompanying Ross (who then hadthe North Branch volunteer responsi-bilities Meersman has today) on seedcollectin

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