Cream Violet – Now you see it; now you don’t.

A Curious Plant Story 

The exception and the unexpected sometimes lead to insights. The lessons may come much later. But it seems worthwhile to record surprises and get feedback.

In this case we wanted local seeds of cream violet (Viola striata) for the Somme restoration, but it was “long sought with despair.” Then we found it, in our own seed-production garden. How could that be? Where had it come from?

Cream violet emerges in a seed production garden

As I remember, I long ago ran across a big colony of what was probably this plant in nearby Chipilly Woods, but it was such a massive, solid patch and so showy that I pegged it as a horticultural violet escaped from some settler’s garden. Not worth taking my time. Later I found an old record that this showy native species had been common here. So I went back and looked, repeatedly, but never found it again. 

Higley and Raddin (1891) called this a plant of “Low grounds and moist woods. Infrequent or rare. Evanston, Rogers Park, Wilmette” and south. 

Pepoon (1927) cites reports from “Evanston, Wilmette, and Pine, Miller, Ind” but adds that “Collectors today do not find it at the last named stations.” Writing of the Des Plaines valley, he says “the great white violet (Viola striata) is common and very striking.” Is it today?

Swink and Wilhelm show no dot, only a triangle, for Cook County, indicating that they found published records but no herbarium specimen that would validate them. 

Wilhelm and Rericha list it for mesic woodlands, alluvial habitats along streams and rivers, but comment that it can be “weedy” in shaded lawns “where it can form massive colonies.” They do give it a dot for Cook County. But if it’s so weedy, why can’t we find it?

For 49 years, the volunteers of the North Branch Restoration Project have shared with the staff of the Cook County Forest Preserves a goal of restoring lost plant species to the North Branch Preserves. The site where Eriko Kojima and I are stewards, Somme Prairie Grove, had 232 native species when we started. Now it has 488, according to our records. But no cream violet. 

As to how five plants of this species ended up scattered in three seed production turfs in May 2026, it would be just speculation. But guessing and possible theories seem acceptable in a blog post, so here goes:

One possibility is that we gathered its seeds on occasion when we thought we were gathering Labrador violet (Viola labradorica), a formerly threatened species that is now doing well the garden (and in many parts of Somme Woods). When not blooming, these two violet species are generally similar. In the garden, the two grow together. 

Our only other theory is that it had been in the yard all along. Strangely, when Linda and I moved into our house (adjacent to Somme Woods), we found the botany of our lawn and little-tended perennial borders to be rich with native species including yellow woodland violet, trout lily, spring cress, Michigan lily, spring beauty, common blue violet, wild plum, and others.

When we established our seed beds, we didn’t dig up or herbicide. We just planted seed and weeded out the species that we didn’t need more seeds for and seemed in the way. Thus we now revel in great beds of mixed robin’s plantain, dwarf skullcap, white bear sedge, awnless graceful sedge, two-flowered Cynthia, cream vetchling, yellow star grass, and on and on.    

Close up of seed production garden featuring yellow star grass, robin's plantain, and cream vetchling in a turf of bastard toadflax, wild geranium, shooting star, blue grass, and others. 

Both of us remember seeing white violets in the past, but dismissing them as Labrador violets that, as blue flowers often do, produced all white variants from time to time. But this year, those white flowers caught our eyes in part because they bloomed after the Labrador violets had mostly stopped. (Swink and Wilhelm give Labrador bloom dates as April 2 to June 2 and cream dates as April 26 to July 3.)

In this photo, the cream violet is growing among wild licorice (Galium circaesans), wood anemone (Anemone quinquifolia), wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) and others. Here last year and this we have weeded out some golden Alexanders, geranium, and false Solomon's seal. The violet is extending long branching stems. 

And why haven’t we ever found it again in Chipilly Woods? As befits a native species called “weedy,” perhaps it stays semi-dormant only pops up in flower after disturbances. Certainly disturbances are common in floodplains - following ice jams and log jams which can wreak a lot of ecological havoc - or where piles of flotsam kill the vegetation beneath, only to be washed away again by another flood - leaving bare soil or a weakened turf. Especially in such situations, native weeds have a valuable role in the ecosystem, helping to restore a diverse turf following a disturbance. (Many conservative species don’t establish well on bare soil but do so in a competitive turf.) Our seed gardens are subject to constant disturbance - as we weed out species that are no longer priorities for seed production. Perhaps last year's garden disturbances were right for a few cream violets to show themselves.

So, what’s the real story?

Perhaps we’ll find more.

For now it’s a sweet mystery. 

 

End Notes

The restoration goals for Somme Prairie Grove are discussed here. 

What was the reference that suggested that cream violet was a part of the flora of Chipilly or Somme Woods? I believe it was in a 1908 study there. But I can’t find it now in that long report. Where might that reference be? Some other old text? How much time do I spend researching texts? For a blog post? If you should find it, tell us. Thanks.  

 

 

How the Friends pursue Our Mission

What following "one pager" is a DRAFT, reflecting the thoughts of many. We invite you to contribute to this thinking. We, the Friends, are only seven years old, changing and growing all the time. Want to contribute?

Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves

How the Friends pursue Our Mission

Most of the work of the Friends is done by thousands of volunteer stewards and advocates. In addition to the “boots on the ground” stewardship, this work includes most of the planning, creativity, and strategizing. Really? Volunteers can do that?

Because of need, for many funding and legal reasons, we the Friends “have” a corporation, insurance, staff, and board. Are they the boss?

No.  A goal of the Friends is to be a core of the broad community of smart, generous, and happy people who save, first, our highest quality preserves – woodlands, savannas, prairies, and wetlands. (Also, humbly, as we grow, we hope to help the ecological health of the planet generally.)

The Friends organization was started by volunteers. We are committed to maintaining unpaid citizens as a central part of our leadership. Here’s: our division of labor:

·      Volunteer Stewards are the on-the-ground folks who cut brush, help rare species, conduct controlled burns, and whatever. 

·      Strategic Advocates work with media and partners to win more friends among agency decision makers, elected officials, and the broad public.

·      The goal of our staff Field Reps is primarily to recognize and mentor and facilitate volunteers who believe in and want to lead components of this mission. 

·      Other staff, some part time, see to publications, media, administration, fund-raising etc. 

·      The board (all volunteers) has legal authority but defers most decisions to stewards, advocates, and staff. 

Dedicated staff (of the Friends and our partner organizations) are crucial. But we're so much more. Scattered among communities around the state, most of us rarely see each other. But we achieve local successes that build powerful community. Success inspires success. On occasion we meet at workshops, through media (social and otherwise), and at our Wild Things conferences, all of which change as we grow. Everyone is welcome to learn and lead. 

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Contributions to our thinking (and our work) (and our funding) are so welcome.

Comment below, or go to our website. 

Is oval-leaved milkweed doomed in Illinois?

by Christos Economou

Oval-leaved milkweed (Asclepias ovalifolia) is Somme’s rarest plant. Northeast Illinois is currently the southeasternmost point of its range, where It has been rare for as long as botanists have thought to look for it. Local expert H.S. Pepoon (writing in the 1920s) never saw it, but mentions collections by botanist H.H. Babcock (from the 1870s), who considered it “a rare occurrence at Stony Island, Glencoe, West Ravenswood.” So far as we know, an original population hasn’t been seen in Illinois in recent decades – except, miraculously, at Somme. 

History

A single plant was found by a volunteer back in the 1980s where a large buckthorn had been cut on the edge of a high quality part of Somme Prairie. My admittedly romantic hunch is that this Somme plant was a relative of Babcock’s Glencoe population; Glencoe is just to the east of Somme, and in the 1870s was the only incorporated town nearby. Whatever the case, the lone Somme plant had been waiting for years to cross with a mate that never came along. 

This was a major problem. Many species don’t self-pollinate, and oval-leaved milkweed seems to be one of them. They need to cross-pollinate to set viable seeds, and having genes from two parents helps their offspring develop adaptations that can make them more vigorous.  As a result, plant populations with very few individuals (one number I’ve heard is less than ~50) are at higher risk of dying out from inbreeding depression. In other words, with only one individual in the population, if no one did anything to introduce “new blood,” Illinois’ oval-leaved milkweed would eventually die out forever. Luckily, the Chicago region is blessed with many nature people that care – and act.  

Ecologist Marlin Bowles (then at Morton Arboretum) took a major initiative. He secured oval-leaved milkweed pollen from the closest known population at a similar latitude all the way in Iowa and used it to hand-pollinate the loner at Somme. The Somme plant thrillingly went on to make one pod full of good seed that was used to propagate new plants, and shortly thereafter died. 

Its half-Somme miracle babies were planted out around the high-quality areas of Somme Prairie (near the original) and in a few open places at Somme Prairie Grove with similar conservative associates. Somme’s oval-leaved milkweed was discovered in an area that was historically wide-open prairie, but that in the 1980s was mostly just a few small openings in brushy artificial woodland. Unlike most other species, as the brush was cleared and restoration progressed, the planted Somme Prairie milkweeds increasingly seemed to struggle and ultimately died out.

The ones planted at Prairie Grove fared better – but not much. Regular censuses showed five of the planted milkweeds surviving in 2014. These plants gradually dwindled, until there was only one plant left in 2019. For the last six years, this has been the only plant observed at Somme. It seems to not be doing very well, as best we can tell from the number of flowers it puts up. We wonder anxiously what will happen this year.

Current status

So we are basically right back where we started. We again have a single individual on which all hopes of this species’ continued existence as a wild plant in Illinois are pinned (but now only half-expresses local genetics). Which begs the question: “What, if anything, should we do now?”

There’s so much else to do. Is it right to take time away from helping myriad other species in need to focus on a single species that seems like it might be doomed by climate change anyway, no matter what we do?

The answer is…

We don’t know. There’s a compelling argument that climate change might make any effort to save this species futile. We truly seem to be on the wrong edge of this species’ range given how the climate is expected to change. Like many more northerly species, it’s possible oval-leaved milkweed benefits from steadier and cooler summer temperatures than we are projected to get in the future. And it seems to be struggling even in places such as Wisconsin where it is relatively more common.

On the other hand, it could be wrong to give up on oval-leaved milkweed so easily. 

I often wonder if, at least sometimes, we don’t invoke climate change a little reflexively as a major threat to X or Y species, when in the near term a much more likely culprit is simple undermanagement. Climate change is certainly a big problem and will only become more of one in the future. But it seems plausible that milkweed populations struggling in Wisconsin could have more to do with canopy closure or insufficient fire than climate stresses, at least for now. For what it’s worth, I know of one planted population doing just fine a few hours to the south of Somme. 

But the major reason to be optimistic is that we may have fundamentally misunderstood this plant’s habitat requirements. Much evidence points to oval-leaved milkweed being more of a woodland and savanna plant than one of full-sun prairies, at least here in Illinois. 

For one thing, the historical Illinois reports all seem to be from areas that were probably open oak woodland back in the 1800s, although Babcock makes no explicit comment on habitat. Pepoon also mentions a Mr. Jesse Smith of Highland Park (close to Glencoe), who said he found the milkweed in nearby “woods” in 1925. Woodlands are also where oval-leaved milkweed is usually found in the parts of its range where it is more common. The Wisconsin populations we’ve learned of are all from oak woodlands of one type or another. 

Minnesota Wildflowers lists oval-leaved milkweed’s habitats as “dry sandy soil, prairies, open woods, roadsides,” while the Illinois Wildflowers website says, “hill prairies and dry sand prairies, typical savannas and sandy savannas, and openings in upland oak woodlands.” When we see habitat lists like these, we usually wonder how close the “prairies” mentioned are to groves of trees.  It seems an important adaptation for many savanna plants that they can cope with different sun situations as the savanna canopy is naturally variable and dynamic. It seems normal that some parts of a population sample sunnier areas and some shadier. We might imagine then that at least some of the "prairies" cited could be better conceived of as “open savannas.” That is, very sunny, open places full of “prairie” plants – but near trees which have meaningful ecological implications when compared with a truly treeless prairie. An “open savanna” area is where our last surviving milkweed is now.

The association with dry places provides another clue. It seems that, like many other short conservative species, oval-leaved milkweed today is surviving better in drier areas where vegetation cannot grow as rank as in more fertile areas and the dry soil restricts tree growth, enabling more light through the sparser canopy. 

Somme doesn’t have any truly dry areas. But over time we’ve come to suspect that many such low-growing conservatives were once also components of less dry (i.e. mesic) areas as well, at least where high ecosystem quality promotes lower vegetation height through competition, soil dynamics, etc. Case studies are plants like Canada hawkweed, June grass, Seneca snakeroot, short green milkweed, and porcupine grass, all of which occur in some very high-quality mesic areas but are normally associated with dry places today. It seems we ought to add oval-leaved milkweed to this list too.

It could be then that our original oval-leaved milkweed set up shop at Somme Prairie because of the prairie’s (thankfully temporary) degradation by brush, which provided both high-quality and part-shade habitat. Quite correctly, the Somme/Iowa plants were planted in areas where “prairie” associates of the original plant – prairie dropseed, June grass, leadplant, cream baptisia, and prairie gentian – were well established. But maybe such places are just too sunny for the milkweed to really thrive. 

In that case, it’s possible that more appropriate habitat would be a bur or very open white oak woodland, with more consistent associates being low-growing woodland and savanna conservatives like Penn sedge, wood rush, bastard toadflax, wood betony, savanna blazingstar, and meadow parsnip. At Somme we refer to this as “closed savanna” and the intermediate areas where these species begin to truly intermingle with the more classic “prairie” plants as “medium savanna”. Based on what we know these seem like the sort of places oval-leaved milkweed would like. As these “intermediate” areas have become a major focus for us in recent years, we’re optimistic Somme could continue to be a good home for it.

 An open woodland with low-growing woodland and savanna conservatives species 

A way forward?

This all suggests a possible course of action. First: find a nearby wild population from which to obtain seeds to propagate a companion for the last of the Illinois oval milkweeds. For this we would have to make an exception to the longstanding Somme rule of sourcing from wild populations within 25 miles of Somme. But under the circumstances, and having already made this exception for this species, we think it’s warranted. 

With those in hand, we would next plant out the companions in part-shade areas near our loner, within a reasonable distance that there will be cross-pollination, and/or attempt to cross-pollinate them ourselves just to be sure. Though milkweeds aren’t usually targets for deer, we’d pop cages on them to make them as secure as possible. Then, if we successfully obtain pods from the original plant, we would take the seed and add it to our woodland, closed savanna, and medium savanna “lo-pro” mixes, making sure to plant some of the mixes near our established plants too so that any offspring would be more likely to cross-pollinate the originals. Then we’d wait. Perhaps, with a little TLC, in 5 or 10 years we’d have an increasing, somewhat-original, wild population of oval-leaved milkweed again in Illinois, for the first time in a century. That would be a win for conservation.

Will this be the year oval-leaved milkweed begins that comeback? Possibly. Many things might prevent it. Our plant might die on us before it can make seed. We might fail to find a suitable donor population, or it may fail to make healthy seeds. Red tape might slow the project down. Or we honestly might just get too busy with the million other things that need doing. 

As always, we will try our best. But whatever happens, we are happy to have been able to share some time on Earth with this little plant, holding out here miraculously against all the odds.

Special thanks...

...go to the many people and groups who've been involved in the drama of trying to help oval-leaved milkweed over the years, including the Morton Arboretum, Chicago Botanic Garden, FPCC ecologists Anna Braum and Rebecca Collings, Marlin Bowles, Stephen Packard (also for helpful edits), Eriko Kojima, and Matt Evans. 

Lily-of-the-Valley as a Menace

The story of a deceptive killer …

… in which a seemingly-irresistible force meets a few possibly-unstoppable stewards.

It’s a drama. Who will win? 

The poisonous killer plant in question is Convalaria majalis. As a deceptively favorite garden plant, it’s called lily-of-the-valley. But stewards of biodiversity call it the death lily, because – under certain conditions in nature – it kills all. 

The photo below shows what this monster looks like – toward the edge of the patch, where some diverse vegetation still survives. In the middle of the patch, we found nothing beside death lily and dirt.

But the next photo zooms in to show why this spot is worth caring about:

Above, you see a purple-leaved plant on the Endangered list – cream vetchling or wood pea (Lathyrus ochroleucus). It deserves life, and, indeed, reproduction and recovery of its once-common woodland status. (Notice the huge stipules visible at the top of the photo where one compound leaf meets the main stem. These stipules distinguish the wood pea from some related look-alikes.) This plant, which now survives at Moraine Hills State Park but in few other places in Illinois, inspires the work shown in the next photo, of the same place, but after some handiwork.

Here six stalksThe next photo shows how big this patch is: 

Here we see it from the north. The south edge of the patch isn’t quite visible here, but if you look closely, you can make out three of the Restore Moraine team, weeding this menace from rare species on that south edge, near the top of the slope where the patch ends. 

These are the heroes yanking out stems from among the higher quality vegetation. We want to save as much rare vegetation as we can. Stewards from left to right are Eriko, Ryan, Mary, Mills, and Erica.

Then comes step two!

The herbicide glyphosate kills all plants. It’s a last resort for species like this lily that aren’t killed by something less toxic. 

Here the heroes are Ali, Jordan, and Steve. Ali and Jordan are spraying death lily. But remember this photo?

If you look closely, you can see that not only wood pea survives on this rocky slope. Among the many other species we found here are round-lobed hepatica, woodland milkweed, nodding wild onion, northern bedstraw, rue anemone, Carolina vetch (also endangered), and many more. But the major other plant above is that robust grass. 

It's reed canary grass, another killer invasive. If we left it, that grass would quickly fill the entire area we opened up. Fortunately, that one is susceptible to herbicides that kill only grass. So, step three, Steve is spraying the reed canary. It's relatively easy to dispatch that one.

Not so for the death lily. This whole lily colony is one plant, roots connected underground. What will happen to the roots in the area where we pulled out the leafy stems – when we spray the nearby intact vegetation? We don’t know. Has anyone else done this? We expect, from experience with other invasives, that the remains of un-herbicided roots, though weakened, will put up new stems near the endangered wood pea and other surviving natural vegetation. We may continue to pull the weakened new shoots, or perhaps we’ll carefully hand-wipe them with herbicide.  

In the meantime, we’ll also focus on the rest of our priorities here. 

The intrepid Restore Moraine volunteers work in only perhaps 20 acres of the 2,200-acre Moraine Hills State Park. Indeed, within these 20 acres, most of our work has been directed toward a top-priority four acres of rare high-quality oak woodland. Quality areas have shrunken under the stresses of past grazing, invasive species, over-populated deer, and excess shade from lack of fire. The four best quality acres are divided up among five little slopes where much of the ecosystem has somehow miraculously survived and is recovering.

As described by Dr. Wayne Schennum, who studied it for decades, what survives here contains patches of rare high-quality remnant white and bur oak community – not recognized until relatively recently as a high priority for biodiversity conservation.  Like the vast prairie, oak woodlands were once a major natural feature of this state. This park also has bogs and fens and sedge meadows and prairie remnants. It has many rare animal populations that also deserve stewardship. We help some with them, but we mostly try to focus on restoring sustainable full health to this oak woodland.  

Dr. Schennum, long advocated for “first aid” rescue work here, mostly by cutting invasive trees. Rare species had been vanishing in the gloom, as he documented. The diverse animals and plants of oak woodlands thrive in dappled sunlight under oaks that are naturally well-spaced by fire.

Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves agreed with Illinois Department of Natural Resources biologist Melissa Grycan that this site should be a priority. With her guidance and support, starting on June 7, 2025, the resulting Restore Moraine stewards have worked every Saturday morning (and some days in between), year round, to do what oak woodlands are increasingly understood to need.

We hadn't tackled the death lily until last week. We've studied the literature and the Internet and asked expert stewards about their experiences. This menace is most vulnerable to herbicide in spring. No other approach controls it, except repeated hand pulling, which is impractical for large populations. We hope to hear from others about varied approaches. This post will be updated as we learn more.

Endnote 1

At Moraine there have been surprises. We’ve found many new populations of Endangered or rare species. All have been injured by excess shade or invasive species. Hundreds of acres of ailing oak woods here need more care. They need regular fire, invasives control, tree thinning, and seeds – which need to be hunted, gathered, prepped, and broadcast into areas where richness has been lost. 

But Moraine isn't the only Preserve with a lack of resources. Most Preserves are suffering. We can't just shift resources here from elsewhere. The Illinois Nature Preserves System needs more staff, contract stewardship, and support for volunteers. But with high-quality woodlands even rarer than prairies, some of us decided that this Nature Preserve was a priority for help by a Friends volunteer community. We're less than a year old here, but off and running. All are invited to come and help, if you're so moved. 

Endnote 2

Account of control at Bluff Spring Fen and Poplar Creek by Kirk Garanflo:

Massive infestations of Lily-of-the-Valley (Convalaria majalis) can be eradicated without hand-pulling and without killing everything with herbicide. Ongoing experiments at both Bluff Spring Fen and Carl R. Hansen Woods have been successful at dramatically reducing this pest in small areas.

For large areas such as shown in the photographs above, use a weed whip (or a metal-bladed brush cutter when woody stems are present) to cut the plants AT GROUND LEVEL during the last weeks of April and the first weeks of May when not much else has emerged. Eliminating leaf structure weakens them for the rest of the year; follow-up is essential thereafter during the spring to attack plants that were missed or that emerged after cutting. As long as the plants are cut below that first leaf axil the plants do not usually then leaf out or flower. This process must be repeated for many years (possibly five) in a row without failure in order to exhaust the energy stored in the roots and eventually kill them. Do not skip a year which will allow new leaves to reinvigorate the roots.

It is necessary to expose the plants free of surrounding plant material. Annual burning to remove old dead material is essential in order to find plants that are hidden among tall, withered foliage.

The use of a weed whip or a brush cutter is far more labor effective than hand pulling for an area larger than a quarter acre. Eventually the infestation will be reduced sufficiently to allow effective hand pulling (even just snapping the plants off at ground level works too) of the odd plants that do survive.

Endnote 3

Frank long-term report from Doug Taron, steward of Bluff Spring Fen:

I spent all of this morning (along with a bunch of other volunteers) hand pulling at Bluff Spring Fen. We have set it back substantially in some areas, but not eradicated it anywhere. Very dense stands can be hit with a weed whip. I despair of this one. The areas where it has invaded far exceed our ability to control. My hope is that as it declines in areas where we are controlling it, we will able to add new spots that we work on. LOTV is a nightmare.

Endnote 4

Experience of Maria Vujic and Stone Hansard at Morton Grove Prairie:

This photo (by Stone) shows where a solid stand of the lily stood last year, indicated by the red line. Where the lily re-emerged this spring is outlined in blue:

It was controlled by multiple sprayings of Glyphosate (4% Aquaneat with Liberate).

This infestation was in an area where the prairie had been shaded out by large cottonwoods (since removed). Prairie seed from nearby was broadcast last fall.

Why did those two patches re-emerge, when this invasive seems completely gone over most of this large area? There are many possibilities. But perfection in one year is not to be expected. The small volunteer crew that assembled to restore this little gem of a Nature Preserve was, at the same time, dealing with massive infestations of sumac, briars, tall goldenrod, buckthorn, and other challenges. We do what we can, and then we follow up. Those blue-outlined patches have been sprayed this spring and will be sprayed again or receive other treatments as needed. 

To see what this area looked like in 2025 prior to treatment, see Maria's photo below:

Acknowledgements

Thanks for review, suggestions, and editing to Lana Fedewa, Jonathan Sabbath, and Eriko Kojima. 

Index to Posts on Birds

Bird Bonanza in 1908

Big bird year at Somme

Birds - habitat restoration for

Birds moving into open woods

Cowbirds

Falcon likes new habitat

Hummingbirds, co-evolution

Hummingbird mating drama

Migrating Birds use of Somme Woods

Migrating Birds use of Somme savanna

Nuthatch Love

Oak Animals and Fire

Prairie restoration for birds

Red-tailed Hawk learns Lesson

Shrub Thicets

Sparrow, "tree" or scrub?

Thrush, Hermit - in winter

Woodcock

Woodcock, Woodhen, and Woodchicks

Woodland restoration for Birds

Woodpeckers, Downy, in love

Yellowthroat

The Discovery of Nature - A Quick History

a DRAFT summary - for a book in progress

Comments welcome

The Discovery of Nature

People and Dates

Some will say that no one discovered it - that people already knew what nature was, since the stone age at least. In that sense, all the animals also "knew" about nature – but scientific discovery is something else. And true understanding of ecosystems is just beginning. 

In the early 1900s, a few people in the Midwest got the ball rolling. Here - unlike most of the temperate world where natural ecosystems had been entirely replaced by croplands, pastures, mines, and cities - small bits of ancient ecosystems survived. More importantly, they survived alongside a rapidly developing culture including universities with at least a few curious scientists who noticed strikingly rich remnant prairies and woodlands that were gone from Eurpoe and farther east (even by the time of Thoreau). These scientists began groping toward new understandings. 

·      In 1899 botanist Henry Cowles at the University of Chicago publishes planet Earth’s first insights into how an ecosystem functions. He focuses on plants that colonize bare sand and describes how much richer such communities become over time. He mentors Victor Shelford, May Theilgaard Watts, and others who would play key roles.  

·      In 1915 animal ecologist Victor Shelford, then a professor at the University of Illinois, launches the Ecological Society of America (ESA) with a mission that includes study and saving the surviving natural ecosystems of the Americas. As the ESA academics vie for grants and professional advancement, the conservation part of that vision gets lost. 

·      Starting in 1916, also building on Cowles, Henry Alan Gleason, a former Illinois farm boy trying to be a plant ecologist, briefly becomes the cutting edge of ecology. Breaking with the conventional simplistic and formulaic approach, he questions some basic principles of the time  – for example, that “succession” is always good … and fire always bad. Conventional scientists shun him. He abandons ecology, his ideas triumphing only decades later. 

·      In the 1940s, Aldo Leopold and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin begin efforts to learn to restore ecosystems. 

·      In 1949, a year after his death, Leopold’s “A Land Ethic” is published – for the first time defining a morality of ecosystem conservation. 

·      In 1951, following Leopold’s earlier recommendations, the State of Wisconsin begins work which will result in a State Board for the Preservation of Scientific Areas – and the first prototype nature preserve system. 

·       Also in 1951, Victor Shelford, still plugging away, enlists George Fell and others to launch The Nature Conservancy, which for decades becomes the unchallenged heavyweight of the ecosystem conservation business, buying quality wildlands.

·       In 1957, May Watts publishes Reading the Landscape – engaging a constituency in ecosystem appreciation. It focuses on the Midwest; later she publishes Reading the Landscape of America and Reading the Landscape of Europe. This is a vision people were hungry for. 

·       In 1959, giving credit to Gleason, John Curtis publishes The Vegetation of Wisconsin, for the first time defining plant communities in scientific detail. 

·       In 1962, Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring – inspiring world-wide conservation efforts and conveying to many people that the planetary ecosystem is a precious and fragile thing. 

·       In 1963 George Fell launches the Illinois Nature Preserves System, to focus on the small, highest quality areas, that had often been neglected. This updated Nature Preserves vision is sufficiently compelling that in the next two decades, more than half the other states follow suit. 

·       In 1975, Fell hires Jack White to lead the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory – the world’s first comprehensive effort to document a state’s surviving high-quality remnants of nature. Its first challenge: to define what such nature meant. 

·       In 1977, the North Branch Prairie Project becomes a model for public participation in the care of publicly owned natural lands, leading to the Illinois Volunteer Stewardship Network in 1983. 

·       1978 the Natural Areas Association forms (under the guidance of George Fell and Illinois chief botanist John Schwegman). Now national. 

·       In 1979, Gerould Wilhelm publishes an early draft of the Floristic Quality Index – a now widely used system for measuring plant community integrity, health, or quality.  

·       In 1988, the Society for Ecological Restoration is launched under the guidance of Bill Jordan and the University of Wisconsin. Now international. 

·       In 2019, although the Illinois Nature Preserves System has grown to more than 600 preserves with more than 250 owners, the ecological health of many preserves is badly stressed. Though legally protected, biodiversity is being lost. The Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves start work to help rescue these still-threatened gems of nature. Government alone can’t do it.