Author Archives: Naomi Kelsey

Personalities of the Prairie

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Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie is unique among the Forest Service units that CLM interns are dispatched to because here we have a whopping six interns! This blog post is dedicated to capturing a little bit of the individuality of the Midewin Six.

Logan 

Favorite Prairie Plant: Clasping Milkweed (Asclepias amplexicaulis)

Favorite Prairie Animal: Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus)

Favorite Spot at Midewin: Sand Ridge

Favorite Seed to Collect: Sideoats Grama (Bouteloua curtipendula)

Logan on collecting Bouteloua curtipendula, “It rolls off the tongue and falls off the bone!”

Logan on himself, “I get that I’m a rambunctious little critter…”

Jonah

Favorite Prairie Plant: Water Hemlock (Cicuta maculata)

Favorite Prairie Animal: Eastern Massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus)

Favorite Spot at Midewin: LAP 1

Favorite Plant to Kill: Reed Canary Grass (Phalaris arundinacea)

Jonahcore quotes: “It’s Poa, what you on dude?” and “What?” It is too hard to explain the context of most of our interactions with Jonah, so I won’t really try.

Gabriel

Favorite Prairie Plant: White Wild Indigo (Baptisia alba) or Prairie Dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) or Midwestern Arrowhead (Sagittaria brevirostra)

Favorite Prairie Animal: Northern Leopard Frog (Lithobates pipiens)

Favorite Spot at Midewin: Sand Ridge

Favorite Seed to Collect: Purple Prairie Clover (Dalea purpurea)

Favorite Plant to Kill: Phrag (Phragmites australis)

Gabriel on protecting remnant prairie from being mowed by the city, “Dude, you should chain yourself to the Silphium out there!“

Gabriel on environmental awareness, “People probably know more about the Amazon getting destroyed than the ecosystems around them.”

Vlad

Favorite Prairie Plant: Virginia Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum)

Favorite Prairie Animal: Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna)

Favorite Spot at Midewin: Oxbow Wetland

Favorite Seed to Collect: Plains Oval Sedge (Carex brevior)

Vlad on things that are Jonahcore, “That’s so Jonahcore.”

Vlad on choosing his lunch, “I’ll select my fish tomorrow. I mean I know I’m going to bring my eel. I’ve nominated my fish. But I’ll formally select it tomorrow.”

Jessica

Favorite Prairie Plant: Marsh Blazing Star (Liatris spicata)

Favorite Prairie Animal: Greater Prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus cupido) or Bison (Bison bison)

Favorite Spot at Midewin: Lobelia Meadows wetland

Favorite Seed to Collect: Gray-head Coneflower (Ratibida pinnata)

Jessica on going to the bison pasture, “You guys can collect seed, I’m gonna collect a baby bison.”

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As of late, I’ve really been enjoying looking at seeds under the microscope to test their viability. It also makes for some interesting photos. 

Logan and I checked out a nearby creek while we were seed collecting and found that we were in the presence of a very industrious beaver. While we didn’t see the creature himself (we assumed he was asleep in his lodge), evidence of his nightly toils could be seen all around us. We observed a series of dams throughout the creek, a network of well-traversed paths on the banks, and many trees that the beaver was currently trying to fell. We think that this might be a particularly ambitious beaver because one of the trees he was working on was a comically large cottonwood. Anyways, he seems like a cool guy and maybe we can have a beer together sometime.

Pageantry on the Prairie

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This past July has been the longest month of my life. Every morning I wake up and think, “Oh my god is it still July?” That might sound negative, but it really isn’t! I think I feel that way because in June I was so overwhelmed that I felt like I wasn’t really absorbing any information, so the whole month was kind of a blur. Come the end of July I’m feeling more acclimated to the prairie. Obviously I still have a lot to learn and I’m well behind the local interns, but I’d like to think I’m beginning to hold my own. Now that I’m not drowning in new information every time I go outdoors to look at plants, I can really start to appreciate them. This blog post is dedicated to the beautiful flowers of the prairie.

Goat’s Rue (Galega officinalis)
Spotted Beebalm (Monarda punctata)

Radiant Reds

My favorite prairie plants thus far are probably Cardinal Flower or Royal Catchfly. Their flowers are an almost impossibly deep, vivid red. In a sea of green, they are a shock to the eyes. Maybe I’ll sound like a sap, but it feels like a miracle that so rich a color could exist and that I’m lucky enough to experience it.

Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
Royal Catchfly (Silene regia)
Marsh Blazing Star (Liatris spicata)
Culver’s Root (Veronicastrum virginicum)
Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida)
Henslow Trail – Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie

The picture above is from the day the Plants of Concern folks came to Midewin and we helped them monitor Silene regia. It was such pleasant weather outside and towards the end we ventured into a black raspberry thicket, so we snacked on raspberries while we looked for beautiful flowers. That was one of those times I felt very happy about what I get to do for work.

Peril on the Prairie

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A sedge meadow at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie

Oh, the prairie, what a thing to behold! Grass swaying in the breeze, bees buzzing, birds chirping, maybe a nearby summer storm rolling in over the horizon. What do you feel looking at this photo? Tranquility, serenity, a sense of times gone by? Unfortunately, this peaceful facade conceals something more sinister. The seldom spoken truth is that the prairie is a place of unimaginable danger. As someone from the Sonoran desert, I thought we had it bad with all the spiny plants and rattlesnakes but at least our threats make themselves obvious. Needless to say, I was not prepared for the inconspicuous terrors that awaited me at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.

TOP 3 PRAIRIE PERILS 

#1) TICKS

Disgusting. Terrible. Evil. Awful. There are no good adjectives to describe ticks. I have yet to find a tick on my person, but I know that eventually my luck has to run out and I rue the day that it does. They take the #1 spot because I really do not want Lyme disease or Rocky Mountain spotted fever! It’s pretty straightforward, they’re just plain gross.

#2) WILD PARSNIP (Pastinaca sativa)

This could be a very cool plant if you don’t think about how annoying it is. If your skin brushes up against wild parsnip it causes a reaction called phytophotodermatitis, which means that the affected area will develop blisters and burns when exposed to sunlight. I unfortunately experienced this first-hand, but I have to admit that I was a little impressed.

#3) HEMLOCK

Midewin has 2 varieties of hemlock; the very same poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) that did Socrates in way back when, and water hemlock (Cicuta maculata). According to the USDA, “water hemlock is the most violently toxic plant that grows in North America.” However, it only comes in at #3 because you actually have to ingest it for it to kill you. The point is, you probably shouldn’t put any random Apiaceae in your mouth.

Of course I’m kidding! So far my time at Midewin has been fun and informative, it is so different from Arizona but I’m enjoying the experience of being somewhere entirely new. Here are some things I’ve especially appreciated.

TOP 3 PLEASANT PRAIRIE THINGS

#1) FALL-OFF-THE-BONE SEDGES

You know that Carex are ready for seed collection when you can run the inflorescence through your fingers and the perigynia fall out like tender barbecue falls off the bone. It is so satisfying but maybe less tasty than actual barbecue.

#2) – COOL SEEDS

Wild Hyacinth (Camassia scilloides) seeds are small, shiny, black spheres that glisten like a beetle’s shell would. The seeds rattle cheerfully in the dry inflorescence so if someone wanted a makeshift maraca they might try visiting Midewin in June.

Camassia scilloides seeds

#3) – KILLDEER (Charadrius vociferus)

They’re funny! So far I haven’t been able to get close enough for a good photo or video but I will keep trying.

To close things out I’m including a relevant poem, this might be how I conclude every blog post but I haven’t quite decided. Check back next month to see if I keep this up, I guess! I hope all the interns elsewhere are having a good time.

Grass in the Wind by Herman Reinstein

Reinstein, H. (1932). Grass in the Wind. Poetry, 40(6), 312–312. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20578676