Loss of Quality in Tomlinson Nature Preserve over Seventeen Years

THIS POST IS A DISCUSSION DRAFT as of Oct 1, 2026. PLEASE DON'T QUOTE UNTIL IT'S FINISHED. BUT COMMENTS AND SUGGESTED EDITS ARE VERY WELCOME.

Important note: This post is not about the current state of this Nature Preserve nor is about the management in recent years. It's about the state of the preserve as seen by studies dated 1996 and 2015. It focuses on the question of whether we have systems of monitoring and analysis of ecosystem quality (or health or integrity) that are adequate to assure the long term health of the preserves. 

In 1985 Tomlinson was permanently protected as a one-acre Illinois Nature Preserve. Originally called Tomlinson Cemetery Prairie, this remnant, according to the Nature Preserve website, “is one of only two savannas protected as nature preserves in the Grand Prairie Section of the Grand Prairie Natural Division.” High-quality savannas are even rarer than prairies. This is a very precious site. 

The Illinois Nature Preserves System was once a world model. It assembled resources to rescue and provide permanent legal protection to our most important remnants of biodiversity. But increasingly, questions have been raised about how well the quality of the preserves in that system is being maintained. 

In 2020, this blog cited concerns about declines in quality of 47 Nature Preserves in all parts of the state. One entry read:

Champaign County: Tomlinson Pioneer Cemetery Prairie Nature Preserve: Seems not to have been burned sufficiently often. Domes of dense hazel have shaded out the previously diverse vegetation over substantial areas.

But it does get burned at least occasionally as shown below in two photos referred to as "recent" on a history website named Clio.  

So how concerned should we be? 

Three studies help us evaluate. In a 2003 study, Bowles and Jones determined that high-quality prairies and savannas which get burned less often than every two years were declining in quality. Ultimately, insufficient burning means losing species and genetic alleles – defeating the very purpose of these preserves.

Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves have been working with anyone interested to assemble information on the state of the preserves. In the process, Friends field rep Stone Hansard came across a scientific paper on Tomlinson by Ellis and Wolz published by the Illinois State Academy of Science in 2015. 

They compared their data to that from nearby prairies, which are thought to be similar to savannas in many respects, and in the absence of high-quality savannas may indeed be the best models. The authors provided these assessments: 

●      Species richness and diversity at Tomlinson is comparable to prairie and savanna remnants in the Region 

●      The number of native species recorded at this small preserve (103) is similar to reports from other prairie remnants 

●      We recorded more native species than Betz and Lamp (1989) in their survey of 29 prairie remnants (range of 30-89 native species per site) and their survey of eight savanna remnants (range of 33-75 native species per site) 

●      An FQI of 32.7 (36.1 native species only) shows relatively high floristic value. Prairie sites with an I of 35 or higher are considered good quality 

●      The relatively high species richness in this small preserve is comforting from a conservation perspective 

The data in this study make an important contribution. A person could conclude from it that the condition of the site was fine. Given the lack of resources for such studies, the argument could be made that this evaluation was sufficient. 

But as it turned out, a third paper, this one by Bowles and McBride, included data on this same preserve seventeen years earlier. This paper was a report to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Ellis and Wolz seem not to have known about this “before” data and didn’t use it to assess trends.  

Data Sets Compared

Both Tomlinson studies based their analysis on quadrat data. In 1996, Bowles and McBride highlighted eight species as especially significant; they comprised 50% of total relative cover (basically, how much total leaf surface is attributable to the various species). These eight species “dominated” the plant community in 1996. 

One way to compare is “floristic quality assessment.” Key to this approach are the various species’ Coefficients of Conservatism (C). Higher numbers suggest a community of greater quality, integrity, or health. In the table below we compare the species that comprised 50% of cumulative relative frequency in Bowles and McBride with the comparable eight species in Ellis and Wolz. 

The mean C for the eight most common species in the two studies were as follows: 

	1996	2013	% decrease
Mean C	4.5	3.1	31%

If we compare the the full list of species from Bowles and McBride with a comparable list from Ellis and Wolz, we see comparable results. 

With good management of a natural area, we would expect the Mean C of the dominant vegetation to remain stable or increase. A drop of 31% in less than two decades suggests a major loss in quality. Therefore this result is troubling. 

The meaning of the above disappointing numbers becomes clearer when we compare the two dominant plant lists. In 1996 the eight species that comprised half the relative cover (roughly equivalent to “most common”) are shown in Table 1a.

All the species in Table 1 (except the “weedy” wild lettuce) are characteristic of high-quality savannas. Under normal conditions they, or others like them, could be expected to remain the most common in this preserve. 

Table 1. Most common plants in 1996

Scientific Name	C	Common Name
Andropogon gerardii	5	big bluestem
Calystegia spithamaea	10	dwarf bindweed
Corylus americana	4	American filbert
Elymus canadensis	4	Canada wild rye
Euphorbia corollata	3	flowering spurge
Helianthus hirsutus	5	bristly sunflower
Lactuca canadensis	1	wild lettuce
Sorghastrum nutans	4	Indian grass

Table 1b shows the comparable species list in 2013.

A first warning sign in this data is that three of the most common species in 2013 suggest degradation: Kentucky blue grass, black raspberry, and Canada goldenrod. Indeed, Kentucky bluegrass, a species said to be associated with insufficient burning, was the second most frequent species recorded in 2013 (in 90% of the plots). 

It’s worth it for conservationists to learn to understand such measures and indicators. We who care need to be well-informed, to set our own priorities. Where should we volunteer to help? What should we advocate for? Where should we contribute funds? How do we compellingly make our voices heard? 

Government programs don’t work if left to the politicians and staff alone. More “citizen scientists” and  dedicated volunteer advocates are needed. As the preserve system has grown, the budget and staffing have shrunk, possibly because most people who care don’t know that there’s a problem. Are many Nature Preserves facing declines like those faced by Tomlinson? Is there a practical way to evaluate all the Nature Preserves? How confident are we that we’re not letting their quality slip away? 

In the early days of the Nature Preserve System, people thought that we could mostly just erect fences and let nature “take its course.” Sadly, in recent decades, a variety of stresses have overwhelmed the capacities of natural areas to manage themselves. The elimination of predators. reduced fire frequency, introduction of exotic species, climate change, fragmentation, and urban sprawl took their toll.

The 639 Illinois Nature Preserves total 125,284 acres. The value of this land, based on averaging various sources is $6.3 billion dollars. We, the public, paid for that land, through donations, tax breaks, and in other ways. That’s a wise investment in precious, rare, and irreplaceable biodiversity. Quality preserves also provide many other public benefits. And yet, large parts of this nature are still uncared for or under-cared-for. Many seem to be degrading as a result of a lack of needed resources.

The Nature Preserves System needs a better approach to studies and monitoring. For example, if an academic or citizen scientist is attempting to conduct a helpful study, there should be someone who could click a button and get access to a list of other studies on the site. 

Three Photos

Two photos from Matt Evans may help readers to visualize this preserve. They are from 2019.

The orange leaves are the shrub hazel.

 

Hazelnut bushes and young oak trees are a natural part of a savanna. But diverse and conservative herb vegetation is critical to a savanna preserve's biodiversity. If the woody vegetation becomes so dense that it shades out and kills off much of the herb diversity, a large part of the value of the preserve is lost. 

Backstory

What’s important about Nature Preserves is that they are the last surviving habitats for hundreds of species of now-rare and interdependent plants and animals. 

For any species of plant to be adequately conserved, it needs a full complement of its genetic diversity. That typically requires a population of 50 or 100 individuals, or more. Next, each plant species has other species associated with it (and often interdependent with it).These associated species include animals, fungi, other soil biota, and more. It has been estimated that for every plant there are an estimated 10 associated animal species. The easiest to monitor are the plants. 

If numbers of plants and animals (mostly invertebrates, including pollinators and predators that help keep the system in balance) fall below what it takes to survive disease outbreaks, droughts, fire, etc., the system may gradually lose sustainability. Then the many diverse species are replaced by a few common ones. As species and genetic richness are lost, overall survivability of the ecosystem declines. For more details on biodiversity, click here. 

Monitoring by simple species counts is insufficient. One plant of a species surviving makes the list look good, but most genetic diversity of that species has likely been lost, and any species of interdependent pollinators or other animals are likely gone as well. 

Miscellaneous Notes:

Another loss at Tomlinson is suggested by the fact that, among the signature plants listed for this site by the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission when it was dedicated in 1985, is the conservative species, leadplant (Amorpha canescens). This species does not appear on either of the later lists. 

Bowles and McBride sampled only once. As Ellis and Wolz sampled throughout the growing season (six times), they were able to list an additional 54 species, indicating more complete sampling. But the mean C of these 54 was a disappointing 2.8. 

References:

Bowles, M. and J. McBride. 1996. Report to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, Ill. Click here.

Bowles, Marlin and Michael Jones. 2003. Twenty-five Year Trends of Chjange in Prairie and Wetland Natural Areas in the Chicago Region of Northeastern Illinois. Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Click here.

Ellis, James L. and Kevin J. Wolz. Vegetation of Tomlinson Pioneer Cemetery Prairie Nature Preserve, Champaign County, Illinois. Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science (2018) Volume 111, pp. 11-16 received 12/1/15 accepted 3/4/18. click here. 

Universal FQI. The FQI Database used in this post was: Taft, J. B., Wilhelm, G. S., Ladd, D. M., & Masters, L. A. 1997. Floristic quality assessment for vegetation in Illinois, a method for assessing vegetation integrity. Westville: Illinois Native Plant Society. Click here. 

Acknowledgements

The authors of the scientific papers deserve principal credit. There would be no solid basis for evaluating this preserve without their important work. Credit goes to Marlin Bowles, Jenny McBride, James Ellis, and Kevin Wolz. There should be more funding for such work. 

Burns and management of Tomlinson are to the credit of the Champaign County Forest Preserve District. 

Thanks to Clio (ahttps://theclio.com) for the burn photos. 

Thanks to Matt Evans for the growing season photos.

Index to Posts on Prairies

Click here for the Master Index to (most significant) Posts

Posts on Prairies:

What is a Grade A Prairie?

Wet-mesic Prairie: Time for a Rebirth?

Are they Hypotheses? or Myths?

Yellow Stargrass Restoration

Prairie Lily Restoration

A Prairie Orchid Reveals Its Secrets

Somme Prairie: from two acres to seventy

Grant Creek Prairie needs Friends Fast

Morton Grove Prairie Rises Again

Scything and mowing for biodiversity

Index to Posts about Biodiversity History and Ideas

Click here for the Master Index to (most significant) Posts

Posts about Biodiversity History and Ideas:

Some History of Biodiversity Conservation 

A Biodiversity History Timeline

Grand Narrative of Planetary Restoration - a vision 

Chicago Wilderness region History tidbits from about 1996 to 2016 

Histories and Comparisons of state Nature Preserve and related programs (by a professor)

Are they Hypotheses? or Myths?

How the Friends pursue Our Mission

49th Anniversary of North Branch Restoration Project

Dense dark forests are modern phenomenon

49th Anniversary of North Branch Stewardship

On August 6, 1977, a dozen generous and happy people launched the North Branch Restoration Project. It inspired similar work at hundreds of sites, engaging hundreds of thousands of people, a history that continues to expand today.  

That first day, a dozen of us gathered seeds of smooth phlox on unprotected land adjacent to Somme Prairie. August is a strange time of year to start. But it was the first weekend day after we finally got the approval of Forest Preserve staff to do this work - initially cutting small brush and planting locally gathered seeds.

There seem to be no photos of day one. But the two photos below shows us the following Saturday planting those seeds in Miami and Wayside Forest Preserves.  

We planted those precious, hard to find seeds one at a time.

The seeds did great, but it took five years for them to grow big enough to flower. 

We were initially called the North Branch Prairie Project, and the site that inspired us was the little 2-acre Grade A prairie at Somme. But it didn't look like this when we first saw it. 

It was full of shrubs and trees, with the quality areas scattered among them.

Bit by bit we cut brush and burned, and the quality area increased. 

Another natural area that inspired us was the rich Bunker Hill oak woodland. But it took us a while to learn (and then to convince others) that it too deserved fire, invasives control, and other stewardship. 

In time we wistfully removed "Prairie" from our name and became the North Branch Restoration Project. 

Every North Branch site - indeed every stewardship site - deserves a good curating and presentation of its history. These treasures and the work to restore them are important heritage.

Perhaps more history would be worth revisiting (and a bit more celebration planned) on the 50th North Branch anniversary, a year from now. 

For more fragmentary bits of this history on this blog, check out Nine Stories, After the Miracle, and the Index to Posts on Collaboration and the Human Community.

Parasite and Partner: the leafless, rootless Dodder

As we put this parasite into our seed mixes, we remember regularly getting alarmed alerts from summer visitors to Somme Prairie Grove: "There's some kind of parasite taking over! Can anything be done?!?"

Be calm, friends. We plant it. 

It's a great partner in restoration of ecosystem health and biodiversity. 

At first we see just a few pale vines, searching around:

Then they start to encircle and cling:

And soon, it's clearly having an impact:

One of the common names for this species is "love vine." But it does not just embrace. It kills, or at least severely depletes.

Those coils are not strangling. They're sucking out nutrients.

It may cover large areas of prairie or savanna:

It thrives where there's heavy domination by one or a few aggressive species - tall goldenrod, woodland sunflower, saw-tooth sunflower, or mountain mint. It seems to be able to reduce their dominance enough that diverse species can then be seeded in. 

It's an amazing plant. When a seed falls to the ground, it waits until the following spring, and at just the right moment, it germinates. But it does not put down a root, and it never makes a leaf. Instead, it uses the energy packed inside that seed to reach out for the stem of a victim. 

Is "victim" the right word here? One night on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show, Jimmie began with the words, "Hi! I'm Jimmy Kimmel. I'm the host, and you're the parasites." Botanical humor strikes again.

But indeed, perhaps "host" is the better and more objective word.  

Though, as you see the assault continue, it can be hard to be coolly objective.

We see two species of dodder at Somme. Most of the photos here are of Cuscuta gronovii, common dodder. We also see rope dodder, Cuscuta glomerata, shown below:

Below, the main victim of common dodder is saw-tooth sunflower:

Or below: on woodland sunflower and tall goldenrod: 

If a host invited me to something and I suspected to be treated this way, I don't think I'd go. 

And this is still early on. Soon the green will bleach out of the host's leaves. The dodder will start to make buds, then flowers, and then seeds. 

When they emerge, its flowers will look like this:

Dodder often leaves other species unaffected, but the aggressive species had been so dominant, that there's now mostly bare ground. 

We broadcast the seed of diverse species into these bare spots, and our impression is that they do pretty well. The monoculture of aggression is history. We should do more careful studies. Perhaps others could do so as well.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to GoBotany for the close-up photo of dodder flowers. 

For other posts on controlling invasive plants, click here.

For a Master Index to Posts, click here.

These Two Sites Had Been The Same

A few hundred feet apart, these two areas are linked. 
Formerly pasture, both had been "protected" conservation land that had been invaded by buckthorn. 
The site on the left (below) was on its own. Buckthorn is nearly all that’s survives. For that patch, the conservation goal had failed. 

The site on the right has received restoration management that has allowed it to keep and expand its biodiversity. 

                  Nature Left Alone                                Nature Conserved and Restored                                                  

In the early days of biodiversity conservation and restoration, some people argued that it would be wrong to "play God" by meddling with nature on land set aside from human manipulation. "Leave it alone!" they insisted. We don't much hear that argument any more. The scene below is partly why.

                                                Nature Left "to Take its Course"

Compared to cared-for land nearby, this scene is shocking. Buckthorn has now replaced nearly all other plants. The birds, pollinators and other animals are also gone. We hadn't found time to get to this opening that survived among the advancing brush. Indeed, we lost a few more such patches also. Restoration is work and takes time. We remember such natural vegetation as purple milkweed here where young buckthorn now rules, as well as Kalm's brome and big bluestem.

In 1977, when restoration began at Somme, the land was fallow former farmland. The areas that originally seemed most worth our help were former pasture openings among young trees and brush. In them, though most original plant species were gone, some "prairie species" survived, a few in one opening, different ones in others.   

The land now called Somme had then been set aside as "Cook County Forest Preserves" decades earlier. Would more trees be best here? We knew that the Forest Preserve concept also embraced prairies. The charter of the Preserve District expressed its goal: 

"to restore and restock, protect and preserve ... such lands together with their flora and fauna as nearly as may be, in their natural state and condition."

As the science of ecology developed, it was determined that the natural state of the Somme preserves included prairie, savanna, oak woodland, and wetland. All needed and deserved stewardship.

But maples, box elders, dogwood, and buckthorns had been gradually increasing around the edges of the relatively-stable, higher-quality prairie and savanna openings ... and in the formerly-grazed woodlands as well. Seed blown on the wind or carried by birds was successfully able to complete with existing "old field" vegetation where the turf of pasture plants was weakest. 

Our innocent goal back then was to expand the openings that contained the rare plants and spread seed from each to each (and other surviving remnants nearby). We sought to restore the diversity that, with occasional burns, would resist invasion by brush and malignant weeds. We cut, burned, and gathered and sowed seed. There were challenges of many kinds, ecological and bureaucratic. A few openings, like the one above, were lost to brush. But bit by bit, most were expanded and enriched until, after 49 years of work and ecosystem self-healing, they looked like the photo below:

                                                Nature Restored and Conserved

Here the plants in bloom include wild quinine (white), prairie coreopsis (yellow), and butterfly milkweed (orange). Visible by foliage and soon to bloom are lead plant, purple prairie clover, dropseed grass, and early goldenrod. Earlier this year we saw here shooting star, violet wood sorrel, bastard toadflax, wood betony, Seneca snakeroot, prairie violet, and many others. Each week it's different, throughout the growing season.

The animals thrive among them. Birds seen and heard in the area of this photo include orchard orioles, eastern kingbirds, indigo buntings, ruby-throated hummingbirds, kestrels, and another long list. Rare butterflies and other pollinators abound. Fungi, bacteria, and likely hundreds of species of rare micro-organisms are part of the still-recovering ancient ecosystem here. We still fight such invaders as teasel, crown vetch, and reed canary grass in some areas. It's not quick. But successes give us confidence and inspiration. 

Bless the hundreds of people who have done and are doing this good work. We remember that it could all have been lost. We are inspired by hope for its future, including the still neglected areas ... as we can get to them. 

Endnote

These two photos were taken a few days apart. The first shows a former "old field" opening on the edge of former prairie and savanna near the north edge of Somme Woods. Despite dramatic improvements in most areas, these 255 acres still have scores of acres waiting for help.

The second photo shows a formerly-similar opening on the edge of now-restored prairie and savanna in the 85-acre Somme Prairie Grove, where restoration started much earlier.

References

For an Index to Posts on Controlling Invasive Plants, click here.

Restoration Results for Yellow Stargrass (Hypoxis hirsuta) after Six and Twelve Years

Introduction

Many preserve areas have a high-quality core that is precious - but too small for sustainability - and also too small for evolutionary processes that biodiversity needs. Such preserves may have a large adjacent area of "buffer" - but the rich diversity of the core is mostly not spreading there. As a result, for animals that depend on certain plant species, populations are so small that in challenging years species drop out, never to return. Also, small populations of plants may not be large enough or genetically robust enough to adapt to changes in climate, hydrology, air quality, predator-prey imbalance, and other challenges. Thus, small populations may lead to the extinction of alleles when local populations die out. A study by Leimu and Fischer (2008) suggests that at least 1,000 individuals are needed for evolutionary sustainability. And those individuals probably can't be descended from the same very few, if they're to conserve biodiversity. In some preserves, certain rare species had many fewer than 1,000 individuals when conservation management began. For these reasons it's especially important to learn to add genetic diversity and expand populations to "buffer" land that may now be playing a very limited conservation role.  

Summary

Restoration experience with Stargrass, a highly conservative plant, could suggest conservation goals and practices for other conservatives. The techniques described below work but, like many ecosystem processes, do so very slowly. Stargrass grows well in high-quality areas of both prairie and oak woodland. We resampled two transects in 2025. Numbers of restored stargrass plants in one transect increased from zero in 2013 to twelve in 2019 ... and then to seventy-one in 2025. In some areas where corms were planted and plants seemed to succeed for a while, stargrass cannot be found today, apparently because it did not survive or reproduce in poor quality habitat. This post summarizes and adds data to a previous post.

Yellow stargrass (Hypoxis hirsuta) is a conservative prairie, savanna, and woodland species. Once ubiquitous, it is now largely limited to remnant ecosystems. When we planted over 150 dormant roots (corms) in Somme Prairie Grove in 2013, our expectations were modest. Experience taught us that small, conservative species like Hypoxis often fail to thrive in restoration.

There is reason to believe that high levels of plant diversity, including little species like this one, may be key to overall ecosystem sustainability (see Endnote 1). 

Our original hypotheses included the hope that, if transplants of this "high quality" species could survive in a somewhat degraded restoration area, in time they would self-seed into their surroundings. For seven years, this hypothesis seemed not to have been borne out. There were no apparent new plants. But this species grows slowly, and, given time and resources, it is not practically possible to monitor it over a large area before it reveals itself by its bright flowers.  

As of 2025, we had learned of Hypoxis at this site:

• It matured to flowering from seed after 8 growing seasons. 
• It reproduced best among diverse, conservative associates. 
• It died out, or at least failed to reach flowering size after twelve years in areas of rank "weedy" growth. 
• Reproduction often occurred many feet away from the original plant, indicating it happened by seed, not from corm division.
• In "medium-rank" vegetation, many planted corms survived and flowered but did not reproduce.
• Individual Hypoxis plants can thrive for at least 15 years.

We will briefly discuss below why some of these lessons in the ecosystem, side-by-side with others, could be helpful. We believe that this sort of “catch-as-catch-can” approach to ecosystem research can sometimes be more useful to day-to-day biodiversity conservation than more perfected and "hard scientific” efforts. 

A portion of “Transect L” in 2022. Yellow flags every ten meters along the trail mark where Hypoxis had been planted on each side in 2013. In 2022, these flags marked the centers of the fifteen plots where we searched for new plants.

But first, the happy facts.

• 2013: we inoculated much of Somme Prairie Grove with mature corms of Hypoxis. For more details on the beginning of this experiment, click here. 
• 2019: we located 148 of those plants, where we planted them, in transects, many along footpaths, ten meters apart. But we found no evidence of reproduction, either vegetative or from seed.
• 2020: we rechecked 10 plots and found five additional original plants in bloom, but still with no reproduction.
• 2022: we re-sampled those 10 plus another 5 plots (to complete Transect L) and found success. Now 13 plots - just seven growing seasons after planting - showed new plants in bloom, with from 1 to 15 new plants each. See Transects Y and Z, as shown in Endnote 4. 

Since seed is being dispersed from these plants every year, we therefore have reasons to expect that this formerly-ubiquitous, conservative prairie and savanna species (see Endnote 2) will reproduce massively, in years and decades ahead. It’s another step in understanding ecosystem recovery. 

Perhaps these “discoveries” shouldn’t have been a surprise. But they feel glorious. It’s so good to know new details … with numbers … and to consider the implications. 

Below are the 2019 and 2020 results of our first monitoring. 

Table 1. 

Survival and Reproduction among Planted Hypoxis Corms -

Six and Seven Years After Planting

A portion of Transect L – 10 plots. (In 2020, we seem to have bothered to monitor only ten plots; for more plots monitored later, see Table 2, below.)

Plot	2019 orig	2019  repro	2020 orig	2020 repro
1	1	0	2	0
2	0	0	2	0
3	1	0	2	0
4	2	0	2	0
5	2	0	2	0
6	1	0	1	0
7	2	0	1	0
8	1	0	1	0
9	0	0	1	0
10	2	0	2	0
T	12	0	16	0

In four plots, there were one or two more Hypoxis in 2020 than in 2019. It’s clear that some plants survived that had not been found in 2019 - probably not flowering on the day we conducted our first follow-up survey. 

Not every plant blooms every year (or perhaps just not when we're sampling). To evaluate success, we're mostly interested in plants that bloom and make seed. For practical monitoring, we only recorded blooming plants. In a weeded garden, it's easy to see what a plant does, but you don't learn what it does in the ecosystem. It’s not easy to find a little grass-like plant among all the others when it’s not blooming. Some of us wasted time trying. Not worth it. We have stuff to do. 

After monitoring in 2019 we monitored again in 2020. Why bother? It happened that, while walking the trails, looking for other things, we got the impression that we were seeing more Hypoxis than previously. We then monitored Transect L (the only transect for which we could quickly find the prior data). Of the 15 plots we quickly located, it turns out we had only bothered to have monitored 10 in 2020. Does this all seem sloppy? Yes, it does. But we actually believe it most productive for us to do many more experiments, imperfectly, than we could do perfectly. In these early stages of this discipline, so many experiments lead to nothing – to be discussed in more detail in a later post (if it's ever written), “What Is Good Ecosystem Science?” 

If Table 1 was the set-up, Table 2 is the punch line. “Suddenly” – nine years after the corms were planted – reproduction was up from 0 to 63. These “new” plants have likely been slowly growing to maturity over the years, without wanting to use what resources they’d amassed in their growing corms for flowers and seeds. The fact that so many plants now appeared flowering for the first time suggests that there had been no other nearby plants spreading seeds in the transect areas when this experiment began. That is, these new plants came from seeds produced by the originals that were planted in 2013.

New Hypoxis blooms in a new place along the transect

Below, for the full 15 plots of Transect L, are the 2019 results compared to 2022. For more details about the plantings, transects, and plots, see Endnote 4.   

Table 2. 

Survival and Reproduction among Planted Hypoxis Corms -

Six and Nine Years After Planting 

Transect L – 15 plots

As in Table 1, but with notes on Structure of Associated Vegetation

Plot	2019 orig	2019  repro	2022 orig	2022 repro	Structure
1	1	0	1	0	Rank
2	0	0	2	2	Rank
3	1	0	2	1	Mostly Rank
4	2	0	1	1	Mostly Rank
5	2	0	1	3	Diverse
6	1	0	2	6	Diverse
7	2	0	1	12	Diverse, short, sparse
8	1	0	2	5	Mixed
9	0	0	2	2	Rank
10	2	0	2	15	Diverse, low stature
11	0	0	2	0	Rank
12	1	0	2	2	Mixed
13	0	0	1	1	Rank
14	1	0	2	4	Mixed
15	-	-	2	9	Diverse
T	14	0	25	63

 Lessons from Table 2: 

• The numbers of found original transplants, located by their flowers, continue to increase. Perhaps small transplants have gradually gotten bigger and stronger.
• Most reproduction occurred in five plots (6, 7, 8, 10, and 15). That is, 47 out of 63 new plants were in those five plots. Or 74% of the reproduction was in 33% of the plots.
• The plots showing most reproduction were the more diverse and characterized by shorter and more conservative plants.  
• One possible implication of this study is that, if we have Hypoxis seed to sow, we might not want to waste it in rank new restoration areas. 

The plots in which we counted the new plants were ten meters long and eight meters wide. That is, these plots were centered on the original transplants and extended five meters in both directions along the path and for approximately four meters on either side of it – a distance in which we could easily see most of those bright little yellow flowers. Thus each plot was 80 meters square.

We first tried to assess the habitat quality for Hypoxis in the 15 plots by various objective means, none of which seemed practical. Thus the assessments above are a matter of judgment. The following photos and captions may provide a sense of how we made the judgements. The captions list conservatives present as well as the diversity that includes somewhat-conservative species. 

A transplant surviving in a Rank and Non-diverse plot is shown below:

This is a dense stand of mountain mint also heavily dominated by dense big bluestem grass. (Notice the short lengths of stems, sectioned by voles last summer, that cover the ground in this spring photo). By mid-summer, such areas may be too dark for Hypoxis to do well. Over time, with burning, such areas may become diverse as a result of broadcast seed ... or just seed that blows in from nearby diverse areas. 

New plant in diverse plot:

Here the young Hypoxis grows among high-conservative prairie violet, leadplant, and wild quinine along with mid-conservative rattlesnake master, compass plant, Culver’s root, hairy green sedge (Cx hirsutella), big bluestem, and others.

New plants in diverse plot:

Hypoxis reproducing among high-conservative violet wood sorrel, small skullcap, and Leiberg’s panic grass along with mid-conservative rattlesnake master, woodland sunflower, heath aster, and other species including gray dogwood. 

New plants, in a diverse area, broader view:

 At least 14 Hypoxis recruits blooming among diverse shooting star, prairie dropseed, rattlesnake master, woodland sunflower, Carolina rose, tall coreopsis, and others. 

We were also interested in whether reproduction was vegetative or by seed, and if by seed, how far the seeds would be effectively spread. The table below shows distances of new plants from the original planted corms.

Table 3. Distances of new plants from original transplants

#	2022  repro	Distances of new plants from original transplants
1	0
2	1	4”
3	2	4’, 6’
4	1	8’
5	3	2’, 7’, 7’
6	6	2”, 8”, 2’, 3’, 5’, 10’
7	5	2’, 2’, 3’, 4’, 4’
8	5	4’, 5’, 10’, 10’, 11’
9	2	3’, 6’
10	0
11	15	3”, 4,”, 5”, 10”, 1’, 1’, 2’, 2’, 2’, 3’, 3’, 4’, 5’, 5’, 6’, 9’, 10’
12	0
13	1	6”
14	4	7”, 9”, 10”, 4’
15	9	6”, 4’, 4’, 5’, 6’, 6’, 7’, 8’, 8’

Of 63 plants, only 11 are less than one foot from the originals. 52 were 2 to 10 feet away. (The seeds of this species clearly have ways to get around. It is known that the seeds of some plant species have special features that motivate ants to disperse them. No doubt others have other 'creative' ways.) These numbers suggest that the Hypoxis was reproducing by seed. 

Plots 2 through 10 (above) are in prairie-like, very open savanna. Plots 13 through 15 are in shadier, but still open savanna. Corms planted in woodland areas have apparently not survived (perhaps because the woodland areas were not of high enough quality?). For notes about prairie, savanna, and woodland results, see Endnote 2. For cautions about the data, see Endnote 3. 

Discussion and Possible Implications

Let’s stipulate that the biodiversity of the tallgrass region may be important. Much of the world’s food is grown here. Much good science talent is here. The genetic alleles most significant for heading off “crop pandemics” or to improve nutrition or to combat climate change may lie among the biota of our nature preserves. 

The critical gene pools are not just of plants but also of bacteria, fungi, invertebrates, and much other biota. Despite the valiant efforts of preserve staff and volunteer stewards, even some of our best and most important nature preserves are losing plant species and other biota. Insufficient resources are focused on biodiversity, and even if many times the current amount can be obtained, the need will still vastly outstrip our funding and abilities. We need to become more expert and effective. 

Many of our best biodiversity areas are too small. Species will not survive vicissitudes and adapt to climate and other changes unless their numbers and acreages increase. As Dr. Ron Panzer has shown for invertebrates, it is likely that for breadth of gene pools of the biota generally – that larger and more diverse preserves would contribute much that doesn’t survive in the smallest, highest-quality areas. For that, we need wise restoration or recovery efforts. Such work will be much facilitated as our expertise in ecosystem first-aid improves. Practitioners should keep records and write up results. 

Endnotes

Endnote 1: Small 

Ecosystem “restorations” are typically pathetically inferior to millenia-old original “remnants.” In comparison, the restorations tend to look “rank” and “wrong.” Prairie restorations usually lack most of the plant species of original prairies. If those species are planted by seed, they typically don’t survive. If planted by plugs, they often don't reproduce. For example, most prairie and savanna restorations have few if any of the little conservative species: small skullcap, prairie violet, Mead’s sedge, violet wood sorrel, and yellow star grass. Of course, many classic big species are also typically absent: prairie lily, heart-leaved Alexanders, prairie parsley, prairie white-fringed orchid, prairie gentian, prairie ladyslipper, etc. etc. It could be that many of the big species missing are those that reproduce best in the matrix that includes the small ones. (Of course, all the conservative species may benefit in various ways from all the others.) This study of Hypoxis looks into just one little species, but it suggests implications. 

Endnote 2: Prairie, Savanna, and Woodland.

As we use the terms in this post, open savanna (or “Prairie” – as it was named in our former seed mixes) has trees nearby but no direct tree shade and includes all prairie plant species. 

Mid savanna (as it is named in our seed mixes) has tree shade for one or a few hours a day and most prairie species, but also a substantial part of the vegetation consists of such shade-associated species as carrion flower, pale Indian plantain, meadow parsnip (Thaspium), veiny wild pea, and spreading dogbane. In such areas there tends to be a greater than normal preponderance of such prairie-and-savanna species as Culver’s root, big bluestem, wild quinine, and early goldenrod.

Closed savanna (as it is named in our seed mixes) has much dappled shade. Here the warm-season “prairie” grasses, though present, are less the principal fuel than are oak leaves and various sedges. Characteristic species may include rue anemone, wood pea (Lathyrus ochroleucus), broad-leaved panic grass, violet bush clover, and wild columbine.

Woodland is an important community that has not to date been well considered for its significance to biodiversity conservation. Characteristic species may include Carolina vetch, upright bindweed, Hypoxis, robin's plantain, wood rush, and wood pea.  Another lesson of this experiment so far is that planted Hypoxis corms did not survive in our woodland plots. It’s likely that the problem was that these plots were in woodland restoration areas too new and rank and too dark. Hypoxis does survive in some remnant woodlands; indeed it is a major plant in some of the highest-quality woodlands. 

Endnote 3: Caution about the data

It's good to separate what we know from what we reasonably suspect. For example, we do not know as a general principle that Hypoxis reproduces flowering new adult plants after eight growing seasons. We know that in this case this method of monitoring picked up the mature new plants in the ninth year, in these soils, among these associated species, under this burn regime, in this period of weather and climate, at this latitude and longitude. Results might be somewhat or highly different elsewhere. On the other hand, these results suggest promising approaches to restoration of this conservative plant and provide some preliminary data. 

Endnote 4: Details about the transects and plots, two final photos, and 2025 data

These transects were set up by pacing off intervals and placing a flag in the ground at every ten meters. We measured by pacing instead of a meter tape because it's quicker. Some transects followed existing paths (also for convenience), but some crossed areas without paths, starting at one easy-to-locate tree and ending at another. At each flag, the crew would plant one corm about a half-meter to the right and one to the left. Actually, they'd kneel down at the flag and dig a hole for the corm a convenient bending distance (about 0.5 meters) to the right and the left. 

We defined the plots in which we looked for reproduction as extending from a given planting point half way to the next. Thus the plots were ten meters long, centered on the planted corms. The plots extended about 4 meters to each side of the transect, as that was the distance over which we could see and count the blooming plants. Seeds may have travelled and succeeded farther away, but this was the area we had previously looked for reproduction and seen none. 

We had not been confident that the transects would be easily re-located. But it did turn out to be easy, as we found no Hypoxis along these transects in 2019 and 2020 except for the lonely pair or single blooming plant at the ten meter intervals. 

Here a lone Hypoxis has emerged among the pussytoes. Low-growing, conservative plant species (some of them hemi-parasites) will likely help maintain the diversity of the recovering prairie and savanna here. Such species include Hypoxis, bastard toadflax, Penn sedge, Mead’s sedge, small skullcap, and pussytoes. 

In this area, Hypoxis was apparently planted by seed four decades ago. It is now so thick that it could be said to comprise a part of the matrix that other conservative species are best seeded into. This density may be more than would be seen flowering in a very high-quality (and thus even more competitive) prairie turf.  

Transect Z

Numbers of plants occurring at ten meter intervals - where planted

	2019	2025
	0	0
	0	0
	2	21
	2	10
	0	4
	1	7
	1	14
	0	0
	2	1
	0	2
	1	1
	0	1
	1	2
	0	1
	0	6
	2	0
	0	1
Totals	12	71

We were impressed by these hastily gathered results. But then we worried that this sample amounted to falsification of the overall result, as perhaps we were inspired to count there because we happened to see success as we walked down that trail. So we went to another transect that had also been burned that year. (Counts in unburned areas are lower. Fewer plants bloom in years without fire, and those that do may be obscured by duff.) This other nearby area produced the following very different results. 

2019

2025

 

0

0

 

0

0

 

2

21

 

2

10

 

0

4

 

1

7

 

1

14

 

0

0

 

2

1

 

0

2

 

1

1

 

0

1

 

1

2

 

0

1

 

0

6

 

2

0

 

0

1

Totals

12

71

Transect Y

Numbers of plants occurring at ten meter intervals - as planted

Year	2019	2025
	2	2
	1	0
	1	1
	1	1
	1	1
	1	0
Totals	7	5

Will Transect Y plants reproduce someday? Will this area, for this species, demonstrate again what we found with rue anemone? For that species the transplants just sat there for two decades, producing seed most years, but that seed not finding the right weather or conditions for establishing new plants. And then, after all that time, they reproduced massively in some areas, and still not at all in others.

References

Many more details about this experiment are given in this earlier post. 

An example of dense Hypoxis in high-quality white oak woodland can be found in a fine post by Dan Carter. 

Acknowledgements

Hundreds of people deserve thanks for their contributions to this work. 

Volunteer stewards and Cook County Forest Preserve staff have nurtured and restored Somme Prairie Grove since 1980. Sai Ramakrishna, Jeanne Dunning, and others planted the original 148 plus corms. Eriko Kojima helped find and monitor the transects in 2019 and 2022. Christos Economou, Adam Rux, Kathy Garness and Eriko Kojima contributed proofing and edits. Blame for the language in this post most goes to Stephen Packard, but in most cases the word "we" is used to reflect the contributions to the work and thinking by so many.  

Apology

This post is a bit thrown together. It deserves a metamorphosis that would make it shorter, clearer, and more true. It was forgotten in the "Drafts" file since it was written in 2025. It's being published now because Rebeccah Hartz, who is working on this species, asked if I had any later data. Dubious, I looked. Not only did I have more data, I had a nearly completed post, waiting, forlornly. 

Earlier posts on Hypoxis were written in 2019 and 2022.

Also, for an Index to Posts on Plant Species, click here.