The month of June kicked off our adventures on the prairie! Initially, we began our field season at Midewin doing meander surveys. A lot of the plants were familiar to me, however, I struggled with a few that I would normally brush off mainly due to them not being very showy (looking at you Carex!). During the meandering, we also had an active competition amongst the volunteers and CLM interns who could ID the last plant in the allotted time. Vlad and I were actively competing to find the coolest plant last, which he found a cool native and I found an Ox-Eye Daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum) an invasive species last. So, for the most part, we tied!

Regarding seed collection, June was spent collecting Atlantic Camas (Camassia scilloides) and multiple Carex species. I feel more confident in my Carex ID and this group no longer frightens me with its extensive amount of terminology! Of all the sedges we observed, I liked Davis’ Sedge (Carex davisii) the most as the perigynia look similar to popcorn kernels.

With seed collection, we were also in a wide variety of habitats like tallgrass prairie and sedge meadows. The sedge meadows were one of my favorites as they had unique tussock sedges that looked like waves of green as the wind blew through them.

Other than camassia and sedges, we also saw other cool critters like insects and many different milkweed species. When I would have down time before work or during lunch, I would take as many photos with my camera as possible. I was definitely more biased to taking pictures of bees and milkweed! 

Speaking of the bees, they were in a rush when it came to foraging on the Leadplant (Amorpha canescens). The species of bees ranged from the small Sweat Bees (Augochlora/Augochloropsis sp.) to many Brown-Belted Bumble Bees (Bombus griseocollis). The flowers of the Leadplant were very fragrant, so I do not blame the bees for being in a hurry to get this limited supply of nectar!

As for the Milkweeds, they were also fragrant and of course had many different insect species on them. Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), for example, smelled strongly of perfume and gained a lot of attraction from the red milkweed beetles (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus). As for the pollinators of common milkweed, flies and bees were a common site as were the milkweed’s pollinia attached to their legs! I also managed to see my first monarch caterpillar (Danaus pleixpplus) of the season hopefully there will be more to come!

Overall, June brought great experiences from meandering in the prairie to learning many of the sedges that occur in Illinois. I can’t wait to get lost in the Silphium forests once they bloom in July, so expect a LOT of Silphium and subsequentially their pollinators in next month’s blog! 

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have always shied away from the sedge family (Cyperaceae), spotting them on almost every walk through woodlands, prairies, wetlands, or neighborhoods. It would usually just be a passing comment to my partner: “Look, another sedge, and another, and another,” without giving them the attention they deserve. Cyperaceae is one of the most successful and species-rich flowering plant families in the world, explaining their presence in nearly every type of habitat. If you are a fan of water chestnuts, you ought to know that you are actually eating a corm of a sedge (Eleocharis dulcis) – pretty neat! Carex, the largest genus in this family, serves as an important ecological component of wetlands and wet prairies, making them crucial for restoration purposes. As a result, they comprise over 50% of our target species list. This group is notoriously difficult to identify, but with some time, head-scratching, and magnification, it’s not all that bad. I extend a special thanks to the botanists at Midewin (Michelle, Jen, Eric, Grant, and Anna) who have willingly shared their knowledge and provided helpful resources to enhance my understanding of this group. Taking a closer look at this diverse and often overlooked family has opened my eyes to its significance and beauty in the landscape.

The eastern prairie white-fringed orchid (Platanthera leucophaea) was once abundant throughout its range. However, the conversion of its habitat, from wet to mesic prairies, into crop land or pasture, has led to a significant decline in this species, as well as in many others. During our monitoring efforts, we had the opportunity to hand-pollinate the flowers, aiming to improve the quality and quantity of seeds. Carefully gathering pollinia on toothpicks at one site, we transferred them to plants at another site. The only successful pollinators of the eastern prairie white-fringed orchid are nocturnal hawkmoths. Despite the presence of these pollinators, the populations of these orchids remain small and fragmented so human intervention is necessary. To enhance genetic diversity, pollen is transferred from one subpopulation to another. In extreme cases, it is even shipped across the Midwest to ensure the success of this species across its entire range.