One of the things that got me into botany was interest in plants that are overlooked by the majority of people. When I started volunteering at the Cook County Forest Preserves in 2019, one of the volunteers, a young botanist named Derek Ziomber, showed me a violet that looked just like any other violet I had seen. But he pointed out that this was not a common blue violet (Viola sororia) but a marsh blue violet (Viola cucullata). The difference was subtle – the latter has shorter beard hairs with a club-like tip, and there are some differences in sepal shape and overall hairiness. This made me realize that there were probably interesting, unusual plants all around that nobody knew about because nobody took the time to examine them closely.
Marsh blue violet (Viola cucullata)
Ever since then, I have been an advocate for the overlooked and underappreciated plants. In restoration, people tend to focus seed collection on the most abundant and apparent plants. In the prairie, this would include species like Eryngium yuccifolium, Coreopsis tripteris, Silphium laciniatum, Lespedeza capitata, and Liatris spicata. While these species are all important “workhorse” species that are necessary to provide structure and compete with invasive vegetation, if they are the only thing that is collected and seeded, your restorations will never look like remnants. There are many other species that aren’t as showy or glorious that nonetheless make up an important part of the ecosystem.
Triosteum perfoliatum fruits.
Throughout my time at Midewin, I have tried to show some love to the overlooked plants. Something like Monarda fistulosa can easily be purchased from a commercial seed company relatively cheaply, but many of the less common species cannot. My fellow interns and I have collected species like Aristida oligantha, Alisma subcordatum, Ammania robusta, Coleataenia rigidula, Dichanthelium implicatum, Dichanthelium leibergii, Scutellaria lateriflora, Eleocharis erythropoda, Galium obtusum, Juncus torreyi, Juncus articulatus, Ludwigia polycarpa, Lycopus americanus, Muhlenbergia cuspidata, Triosteum perfoliatum, and others.
Top, from left to right: Coleataenia rigidula,Dichanthelium lindheimeri, Muhlenbergia cuspidata. Bottom: Aristida oligantha.
We were also asked by our mentors to collect Sporobolus vaginiflorus, an annual cousin of the familiar prairie dropseed which looks nothing alike. I noticed that there was also a very similar species, Sporobolus neglectus, mixed in with it. Although neglectus makes up a significant portion of the population of these annual Spororboli in barren areas, the land managers were unaware that it was here, showing the lack of attention given to such underappreciated plants. These and some of the species I mention above are slated to be put into a recently disturbed area (a scrape) that is ideal habitat for these early succession annuals. If these species are not put in, the site will likely fill in with non-native annual weeds.
Sporobolus neglectus (left) and Sporobolus vaginiflorus (right) spikelets. The latter has hairy (as opposed to glabrous) lemmas, and longer, narrower glumes and lemmas.
I’ve been helping the Midewin hydrologist (technically the fish biologist) Len Kring compile the Watershed Restoration Action Plan (WRAP), and in the process, learning many things that my basic (eco)hydrology course at NU had not taught me. Let me begin with an analogy — water is a hungry creature. It eats sediment when it is pure, and only once it becomes satisfied on a good meal of sand, clay, and silt, does it contently meander its way downstream, lazily picking up some sediment in one place and depositing a little in another. When something rudely interrupts the water’s course and forces the water to drop its sediment, it once again becomes hungry and begins eating away at the banks and bed downstream.
Unfortunately, there are many things that bother the water of Prairie Creek as it flows through Midewin, which encompasses about 80% of the Prairie Creek HUC 12 watershed. There are old bridges with supports in the middle of the creek. I thought at first, what could possibly go wrong with supports in the creek? But one only needs to take one look at the old railroad trestle with at least 3 supports in the river that has accumulated an impressive log jam behind it to see the problem. As debris floats down the stream during high flow, it gets caught in those supports, accumulating and forming a dam. This not only prevents fish and other aquatic organisms from traveling across the barrier, but it also causes the areas downstream of the dam to erode heavily. This is because obstacles cause sediment previously carried by the steam to be deposited, meaning that the water immediately downstream of such obstacles is relatively free of particulate matter and “hungry”, wanting to pick up sediment from the banks and channel bed. Water also tries to go around the dam, widening the channel at both ends, until those alternate paths also get blocked by incoming logs. In the end, the downstream portion becomes both wider and deeper, and the banks keep receding. The solution is to demolish all unneeded legacy bridges, and replace those that are still necessary with bridges having no in-stream supports.
Left: horrible log jam upstream of legacy railroad trestle. Right: the downstream side of the dam has widened to 3x the original channel width, eroding the banks and causing trees to fall.
A similar issue occurs on a smaller scale with poorly designed culverts. These are typically under roads, and often take the form of two or three buried pipes. Typically, they are too narrow, causing water to flow through them at higher velocities than it normally would, causing erosion on the downstream end. While the culvert begins with having the same level relative to the ground on both the upstream and downstream sides, it often ends up being above grade on the DS side, resulting in a waterfall. Additionally, these small culverts also often become blocked with debris, causing water to erode the soil around the culverts as it seeks a new path through. This has resulted in numerous culverts developing large potholes, making the roads above them almost impassable. The solution is creating wider culverts consisting of bottomless arches sitting on bedrock or a concrete slab.
Downstream side of poorly designed culvert which has turned into a waterfall.
Worst of all, there is a large dam just north of Doyle Rd., which is significantly altering channel shape and function both upstream and downstream, and acts as an impenetrable barrier to fish and other aquatic organisms. Removing the dam might be as simple as dynamiting it and then carting away the debris. However, there is a large amount of sediment trapped behind the dam (reaching almost the top of the dam on the upstream side), which may be contaminated due to army activities. This means that before the dam is removed, the sediment must be tested for contamination. If there is a hazardous level of contaminants, the sediment would need to be dredged out from behind the dam before the dam can be removed (as removing the dam would mobilize all of that sediment). This would significantly complicate the process and drive up costs.
Doyle Rd. dam.
The Watershed Restoration Action Plan (WRAP) for Prairie Creek includes all of these things and much more. The plan lists all steps (essential projects) that are necessary in order to improve the watershed to the next condition class, the three classes being (3) impaired function, (2) functioning at risk, and (1) functioning properly. In the case of Prairie Creek, the current state is functioning at risk and the desired state is functioning properly. Most importantly, approval of this plan will allow Midewin to acquire funding to address the essential projects, which include both structural improvements like ones listed above as well as invasive species removal and native habitat restoration throughout the watershed.
Over the course of the internship at Midewin, we have worked with Plants of Concern (POC), a rare plant monitoring program based in the Chicago Botanic Garden, which monitors populations of rare and state listed plants at Midewin. We also worked with the US Fish and Wildlife to monitor federally endangered Dalea foliosa (leafy prairie clover). The Plants of Concern protocol revolves around “subpopulations,” which are defined as having a distance of at least 50 meters between the nearest plants. Separate EO’s (element occurrences) are considered separate populations; many EO’s have more than one subpopulation. Level one protocol is focused on assessing the extent and abundance of plants in a subpopulation, and it is done for all subpopulations monitored by POC. Level two protocol provides information on demographics by looking at a small area and seeing how many fruits and seedlings plants are produced. Information is also recorded on threats to the population, including invasive species (both herbaceous and woody plants) and other impacts such as deer browse and trampling.
Dalea foliosa (leafy prairie clover), a federally endangered species found in dolomite prairies.
We monitored 3 subpopulations of Silene regia (royal catchfly), 2 subpopulations of Malvastrum hispidum (hispid false mallow), a subpopulation of Trifolium reflexum (buffalo clover), 4 subpopulations of Agalinis auriculata (eared false foxglove), and a subpopulation of Sanguisorba canadensis (Canadian burnet) with POC, as well as one subpopulation of Dalea foliosa with USFWS and another subpopulation with Midewin staff. Interestingly, species can behave quite differently in restorations as compared to wild populations. For example, Silene regia was very rare in the wild and was extirpated from the Chicago Region according to the Flora of the Chicago Region, whose authors assigned this species a C value of 10. So, the population we monitored was re-introduced, not wild. However, it has been highly successful in restoration, being present in most of the restorations at Midewin (coming up from seed), and the population we monitored has over 1000 individuals. Interestingly, in some of the places where it grows, it seems to prefer more disturbed areas over higher quality ones. In one restoration, it was growing happily in the weedy roadside border with Bromus inermis and Pastinaca sativa but avoiding the adjacent restoration with diverse native vegetation such as Dalea purpurea, Baptisia alba, Eryngium yuccifolium, Sorghastrum nutans, Parthenium integrifolium, Silphium laciniatum, and Silphium terebinthinaceum. Given that the core of this species’ range is in the Ozarks of Missouri, I wonder whether Silene regia was simply dispersal-limited. Now that it has human assistance through widespread seeding in many restorations and even ornamental plantings (due to its showy flowers), it may be more widespread in the region than it ever was to begin with.
Thankfully, Agalinis auriculata also seems to be doing quite well from seeding in restorations as it was present in at least two sites outside of the original two remnant sites at Midewin. The restored populations may now even outnumber the remnants. It would be interesting to monitor these restored populations and verify whether this is true. I believe that this shows that many plants are only rare because of lack of habitat, and that re-creating the habitat where it had been erased previously, and re-introducing these species, can be a resounding success.
One of the most enjoyable activities so far at Midewin has been vegetation monitoring. We are collecting data to be used for floristic quality assessment, to monitor the quality and progress of our restorations. Each site that we monitor has several (4-5) 100 meter transects running north-south, each containing 25 points (spaced 4m apart). 1m*1m quadrats are placed at each point a random distance away from the transect (0-10m). At the start, a coin is flipped to determine whether the even random numbers will be east or west. Within the quadrat, every plant species is recorded, beginning with a .25m*.25m corner. After all species in the corner are recorded, all species present in the rest of the quadrat outside of the corner are recorded. Dead biomass (fuel) thickness is recorded at three points along the edge of the quadrat. Also, the species comprising 70%, 20%, and 10% of the dry weight in each quadrat are recorded.
Left: bluish stems and short, hairy ligule of Andropogon gerardii (big bluestem). Right: “bunny ear” ligule of Sorgastrum nutans (indiangrass).
Conducting vegetation monitoring requires plant identification knowledge beyond what I’d ever employed before in everyday botany. You must not only be able to identify mature plants in flower or in seed (which can be keyed out even if you have never seen the species before), but you must be able to identify every seedling in the understory, which is a daunting task. They will lack the floral parts often necessary to be keyable, and are best identified by someone who has grown the plants from seed, seeing them at every stage of their life. Luckily, I have grown many prairie species from seed at my native plant garden at Northwestern, taking special care to document the species in their seedling phase and putting the pictures in a native plant guide for the future generations of my Prairie Cats Ecological Restoration Club.
Dianthus armeria (Deptford pink) basal rosette. This one stumped us for a long time until we saw a fruiting stem coming from such a rosette.
Still, many of the specimens I encountered in the field were completely enigmatic. The wetland plots were difficult, containing many wetland plants I had little to no experience with (all those silly little Lamiaceae). Grasses also presented a challenge — I had only ever paid attention to the floral characteristics of grasses (I have attempted to key numerous grasses from family, but the keys usually rely on floral characters). Foolishly, I had paid essentially no attention grass vegetative characters. However, thanks to Anna, our great botany technician, I was able to quickly learn how to distinguish some of the more common grasses. Also, the previous horticulturist at Midewin, Eric Ulaszek, is somewhat of a graminoid connoisseur and a great field botanist, and he created a vegetative key for the grasses of Midewin.
One of those annoying little opposite wetland plants that feel impossible to identify. Our best guess is Laportea canadensis (wood nettle).
Every time I did quadrats, I derived a great amount of joy from finding the small, unobtrusive little things that you can expect to find in nearly every quadrat. For something like Poa pratensis (Kentucky bluegrass), finding it is almost a formality (it was in almost every single upland plot). However, they are small and often don’t show their inflorescences at the top, so finding them requires digging through all the small grass-like foliage at the bottom of the plot. I’d keep pulling little tufts of grass and looking for the Poas (also Poa compressa). And then all of a sudden… success! Poa on the Prairie! (This message is brought to you by the Don’t Kill Your Lawn Foundation).
Poa compressa tiller. Note how flat the leaves are (Poa compressa is even flatter).
Midewin is the sort of place where there are more cows than people. In fact, I went about 3 weeks without seeing a single tourist. (To quote my friend, I am nothing if not the anti-tourist). On the other hand, I saw cows there in my first week. Interestingly, Midewin earns some its own income rather than waiting for federal funding, so they lease out a lot of their land to ranchers and farmers. A large portion of the site consists of row crops (which are a precursor to restoration) and cattle pastures, which are also managed as grassland bird habitat. My first week, I got invited by the Wildlife crew to do bird surveys, which was exciting since I used to be a hardcore birder before I got into botany. While it required getting up very early (6am start), I saw a lot of cool grassland birds like bobolinks, dickcissels, grasshopper sparrows, Henslow’s sparrows, and even a blue grosbeak, among others.
Cows on the east side of Midewin.
People were saying that the restorations weren’t as good for birds as the cow pastures, and I noticed this too. I have a theory on why. People claim, and it seems to be true, that birds generally care more about the structure of the habitat rather than the species composition. They like large expanses of graminoids interspersed with shrubs and small trees. The cow pastures and old fields at Midewin mostly match this description, while the restorations mostly do not. Some people (well, specifically bird people) take this to mean that the birds “like” the old fields with their non-native cool season grasses more than restorations. I think it has to do with how the restorations are done, and that a non-native old field cannot compete with a bird habitat-oriented restoration using native plants. First of all, restorations tend to be very forb-heavy, with an emphasis on plant diversity rather than structure. I believe that historic prairies would have been more graminoid heavy than many of the restorations. Some people I’ve talked to get upset when their restorations are graminoid heavy, and even try deadheading native grasses to encourage more forbs. I believe that such an approach is counterproductive, by trying to artificially encourage a certain composition which may not be based in natural history. There needs to be diversity within diversity (as in, some species are supposed to be more abundant than others) – a completely uniform composition would yield the highest diversity, but that is clearly not natural. I believe that including more graminoids in seed mixes can create a more natural structure to prairie restorations, one which will be more hospitable to native grassland birds. This is just my conjecture, and I’d love to do some more reading on this topic.
Nest likely belonging to red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).
We were also pulled in, in a rotating fashion, to Range and Wildlife’s brushcutting operations on the east side. When it was my turn to go, I was told I could use the brush saw, which I was really excited for because I’ve volunteered a lot with the Cook County Forest Preserves doing brush cutting using hand tools. It is a fun and rewarding activity, but it is long and arduous. Sometimes, we had people using brush saws with us, though I believe you have to go through a training to use it. But here I was, without any certification or experience, being offered to use this wondrous machine for the first time. I got some basic training from Cory, the Wildlife Biologist, and was let loose. I started cutting things and quickly became disappointed, because my saw would cut an inch into some wood and then would get stuck turning and not cutting anything; heating so much that the wood became blackened. I thought, this thing sucks. I’d rather be hacking away at it with a wood knife. Though I also kept worrying that I was doing something wrong. Then Cory said the saw might be dull and gave me a new one. Suddenly, life became a lot more exciting as I found I could cut through the brush like butter. I quickly got the hang of using the brush saw, and now I think I can never go back to hand cutting.
This post’s author, cutting brush with the brush saw.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming: seed collection. Us CLM interns have been engaged in all steps of the seed collection process, from scouting to cleaning. Most of what we’ve collected are sedges like the ones whose name I always confuse, the “three B’s” – Carex bicknelii, brevior, and bebbii. Others we have collected are gravida, annectens/vulpinoidea, comosa and hystericina, and the tussock sedges (stricta, emoreyi, and haydenii). Sedges are generally very nice to collect, being fairly tall and visible. They are also incredibly fun to identify and key out (thankfully, I have plenty of prior experience doing this). Some other things were not so fun to collect. Blue eyed grass (Sisyrinchium albidum), prairie violet (Viola pedatifida), and worst of all, yellow star grass (Hypoxis hirsuta). All of these plants, when in seed, are small, inconspicuous, and hidden by taller vegetation. Scouting and collecting them requires bending down to the ground and looking closely, resulting in slow progress. Hypoxis hirsuta is incredibly inconspicuous, meaning that the most practical way to locate it for collection is to flag every plant when they are flowering in May and then come back in late June to collect the seeds when they are ready. Unfortunately, we did not have such luxury and had to find these little needles in a haystack of grasses and sedges.
Yellow star grass (Hypoxis hirsuta) infructescence.Carex emoreyi in seed.
