Thumbnail Reviews of 25 Stimulating Species

“Ecosystems are more complicated than we think – 

and more complicated than we can think!”

Frank Egler

And yet, if we want to save them, we have to think and focus as best we can. This post is an attempt at something like pointillism or montage – a series of images and thumbnail studies that seek to convey insights into recovering prairie, savanna, and woods.

Of the more than 546 plant species in the Somme preserves, these 25 are random-ish samples of the complexity that stewards strive to work with. They run the gamut from conservatives to thugs. Like most Somme plants, most of these are rare – and associated with thousands of species of rare animals. But some are pests. The conservative (high-quality) plants fight the thugs, and with each other, toward ecosystem complexity and health – and we try to facilitate.  

New Jersey tea had been common in prairie, savanna, and woodland.

1. New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus)

Said to be what the American revolutionaries drank after they threw the British tea into Boston Harbor, this shrub was one of the commonest savanna plants in what we now call Illinois but then was home to the Potawatomi, Illiniwek, and others. 

In our early explorations of Somme Woods, we noticed a few of these plants under old white oaks, but restoration didn’t get back to that area for decades, and when we finally did, the woods was too shady and this species was gone. 

In the meantime, we had been working hard on Somme Prairie Grove, across the street, where we found just two or three New Jersey tea plants in semi-shade of a bur oak. We gathered handfulls of seeds, here and from two larger patches in Miami Woods, and we broadcast them widely. The broadcast seeds produced nothing. We also grew little plants in a garden to transplant (you pour boiling water over the seeds to get them to sprout). Then we installed those little tea plants into the Somme recovering ecosystem. They grew for a while and then faded and died. Something was wrong. 

The plants under that original bur oak also died out, but that population didn’t die. It moved north, bit by bit. The closest New Jersey tea is now 54 feet (16.5 meters) from that original oak, in an opener, sunnier, regularly-burned area. And the farthest plant from the original oak is 194 feet north. The patch, formerly two or three plants, is now closer to two to three hundred plants. The patch is impressive in bloom – 140 feet from north to south and 74 feet east to west. Part of the explanation may be that this species has a necessary partner – its own specialized bacterium. Perhaps it has spread as fast at that Frankia bacterium could spread. (We’re now digging up a little soil from around tea roots and installing it in other parts of the preserve, where little New Jersey tea plants are trying to get started.) This plant can spread gradually, over time, in this case four decades; we’ve burned its habitat about twenty times over those years. The tea is happy, at least in that spreading patch.  

Canada milk vetch is related to "loco-weed."

2. Canada milk vetch (Astragalus canadensis)

In the early North Branch days, we found this handsome plant only at Miami Woods. Perhaps because of over-populated deer, it seems to be gone from there. But it now thrives over large parts of Somme, sometimes mixed with tall grasses, sometimes in partial shade. In 2019 we gathered a grocery bag full of its seed pods, only to find the pods were empty. Perhaps the seeds had been eaten by insects (as weevils often eat the false indigo seeds)? Or did this species just not make seeds this year because conditions weren’t right? (Some plants are fussy that way.) Later we found some plants that did have seed, so this year’s planting mixes will have at least some. We plant what seeds we find in good years, and for many species, that’s enough. 

Oval milkweed - the only plant of its kind known to bloom in Illinois this year.

3. Oval milkweed (Asclepias ovalifolia)

We found one plant of this species. Indeed, it had been the only one found in Illinois in recent decades. Marlin Bowles of the Morton Arboretum hand-pollinated the Somme plant with pollen from the closest surviving plant in this latitude (Iowa). It made one pod full of half-Somme/half-Iowa seeds, and died. The Arb propagated plants from those seeds, and we “restored” them to Somme Prairie and Somme Prairie Grove. In Somme Prairie, they seemed not to make it. At Somme Prairie Grove, we counted five plants in 2014, down to three in 2016, and only one in 2019. Is it doomed? Plants of this species do sometimes appear after many years. And the Chicago Botanic Garden has been developing strategies to save this needy orphan. Stay tuned. 

One lonely prairie cinquefoil (blurry yellow) in a sea of purple prairie clover.

4. Prairie cinquefoil (Drymocallis arguta)

We found a couple of these plants at Wayside Prairie during the early years of North Branch restoration. Their numbers seemed to be on the gradual upswing until the deer populations skyrocketed in the early nineties. Now they’re one of the rarest species at Somme. We continue to find an occasional plant, propagate its seeds in gardens, and broadcast it widely once again. 

Some species have gone through hard times, received a lot of remedial “special care” – and then started to do well on their own. We’ll continue working for recovery of this one. 

5. Perplexed tick-trefoil (Desmodium perplexum)

For years we had a difficult time getting any of the woodland tick-trefoils established at Somme. We had gotten small amounts of seed from Deer Grove and Harms Woods (of the species called paniculatum, cuspidatum, perplexum, and glutinosum). We’d see a plant or two from time to time, but then they’d be gone. They just didn’t like the site? Or the deer ate them? For species that seemed to need the extra help, we planted “propagation beds” with our regular mixes and weeded out the species we didn’t need. Over time perplexum started to thrive in one of those seed propagation beds in my yard. We started to be able to move more seed over to the preserve. But as the bed population increased, the clingy seeds would get all over me as I worked in the garden, taking forever to remove from my clothes. Then a brainstorm: I took to walking through the perplexum beds just before going to the preserve to work. I’d leave home covered with seeds, but by the time I was ready to return, they’d all be brushed off into the ecosystem, wherever – an appropriate technology innovation? Soon perplexum was visibly expanding in many areas at Somme.

But then it started doing insanely well in the propagation garden, crowding out most other species. It spreads underground, comes up thick in the lawn if I fail to mow soon enough. What kind of demon plant is this? We started weeding it mercilessly. Every last one. The preserve doesn’t need any more, and neither does the yard. Yet in the preserve it seems to be doing just fine and playing well with others. 

Also that name: perplexum? I have a hard enough time remembering the common and scientific names of 546 species of plants without the botanists changing them so often. This one was “smooth tick-trefoil” (Desmodium glabellum) in Swink and Wilhelm but is treated as “take-another-look tick-trefoil” (Desmodium perplexum) in Wilhelm and Rericha. Help! Yet “perplexum” does fit; I find it easy to remember; I’m sticking with it.

6. Stiff aster (Oligoneuron album)

This plant is frequent in the very high quality “two acres” of original prairie at Somme – but in very few other mesic prairies, at least in this region. We moved seeds here and there, into degraded areas under restoration. For many years they appeared nowhere new, but then a few plants turned up on Coyote Knob (the closest thing to a “hill” in Somme Prairie Grove). This year there were about twenty. The main (“Inner Loop”) trail goes right through them. Welcome.

Speaking of name changes, Oligoneuron album was Aster ptarmacoides until recently. An “earth-shaking” change, this aster was put into a goldenrod genus. Botanists had puzzled over it for years, because this aster hybridized at times with Riddell’s goldenrod. Only closely related plants normally have morals so loose that they hybridize with each other. So, in the world of scientific names, this plant is now a goldenrod, but in the world of common names, it’s still an aster. Go figure. 

7. Sanicle, or black snakeroot (Sanicula marilandica)

John and Jane Balaban first noticed that the snakeroot out in the savanna grassland was different from the common, weedy one in the woods. The grassland plant turned out to be “sanicle” or “Maryland snakeroot.” It has much bigger flower and seed heads, though both just kind of blend into the “green blur” for the casual visitor. We don’t ever seem to see this species, except in a few of the better quality openings in Somme Prairie Grove. There it survived 100 years of shifting farming and pasture patches and now seems to us a special, obscure pet, that hardly anyone notices. In recent years, Eriko Kojima has been gathering its seeds for the mixes, so perhaps we’ll see it elsewhere? 

Wild hyacinth (pale blue, front and center)
The pink ones are shooting stars.
The green-and-gold leaves are New Jersey tea shrubs, re-sprouting after a burn. 

8. Wild hyacinth (Camassia scilloides)

We noticed two lone plants of this classic savanna species in two disparate parts of Somme Prairie Grove when we started work. We hoped perhaps more would appear, but none did until we broadcast a lot of seed that we got from at least three different places. The fact that a few plants survived here suggests that soil biota (fungi, nematodes, bacteria, etc.) associated with this species may have survived as well. However, with that very small number of plants, survival was unlikely for insects requiring this plant for pollen, nectar, or other food. 

At first we thought our restoration efforts had failed, as no plants appeared. But, like quite a few species, this one takes many years to flower and can be hard to notice until it does. The populations from which the seeds came have not fared well, but the Somme hyacinth populations thrive by the thousands.  

American slough grass
The flower fly is there to remind us that the average rare plant in a high quality natural ecosystem has ten species of mostly-rare animals associated with it. Biodiversity is beyond our ability to comprehend or control. But as stewards, we can maintain it, or at least a great deal of it. 

9. American sloughgrass (Beckmannia syzigachne)

Saving specialized genes of rare grasses is a surpassingly important aim of practical conservation for agriculture. Most people on the planet eat mostly grass – in the form of wheat, corn, rice, oats, rye and other grains – and in the form of beef, chicken, farm-raised fish, and other animals that mostly eat grass, in one form or another. When some plant disease threatens to wipe out some major crop, as happens from time to time, agronomists go back to wild relatives to “save civilization.” 

The American sloughgrass that lives in “the corn belt” is a very rare plant. It was found in Somme Prairie Grove (before it had that name, or stewards) by amateur botanist Marion Cole. It was also found in one other North Branch site (Sauganash Prairie Grove). At Sauganash it seems to have been lost. At Somme Prairie Grove these days there are three to five plants in most years. When we started looking for it, following up on Marion's discovery, we could not find any. It’s an annual, and conditions may not be right for it every year. But after many years of waiting, we threw around some seed from Sauganash. A couple of years later, we found one plant, but not where we’d thrown the seed. One big plant seemed to reappear in the same spot, year after year. Then, finally, one year, many little ones. In those years we were driving back a monoculture of cattails; there was a lot of bare ground where pure cattails had stood, and soon we had hundreds of plants of sloughgrass, seemingly a roaring success. But as quality species began to elbow each other into a rich community, this annual mostly dropped out. These days it’s in a very different, much deeper-water area. We’ll continue to watch and study – and add some diversity to the gene pool from a site along the Des Plaines when we can. 

10. Rock chestnut oak (Quercus prinus or montana?)

Not in local botany books, this curious oak seems to have been planted by Forest Preserve staff long ago, when “just get some trees growing” seemed to be the goal. With our restoration mission, we cut or burned out a great many such mostly “ill-fitting” and sickly trees including pines, birches, locusts, and more. Among oaks then planted and still present are chinkapin, post, white, pin, and this one. For some reason, this oak, if we’ve identified it right and which is found mostly south and east of the Ohio River, has prospered and spread. 

We’ve cut some, when it threatened to shade out quality vegetation, but we’ve mostly left them alone, uneasily. Our rule has been that we restore from within 25 miles, to save local gene pools. But this species for now seems to be an experiment. At least these trees promote rehabilitative burns by providing valuable oak leaf fuel along the north edge of the site where it’s thin. Perhaps someday it may make sense to cut most or all of them. Or, perhaps, down the road, as climate change progresses, we’ll be glad they’re there. 

11. White oak (Quercus alba)

To the confusion of some, we stewards see this fine tree largely as an unwanted invader in Somme Prairie Grove. It was planted here in large numbers (with pines and birches) by early staff foresters. Most of those apparently random trees failed to thrive. This species is the most numerous large tree at Somme Prairie Grove.  

Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit the ecosystem. Old records show no trees in Somme Prairie, bur and Hill’s oaks in Somme Prairie Grove, and a richer mix of tree species including white, swamp white, and red oak in Somme Woods. The reason that bur and Hill’s were the savanna oaks is that they are most able to deal with fire. Many white oaks have died from the fires in areas where restored tallgrass vegetation burns with characteristic intensity. We have maintained most of the white oaks in Somme Prairie Grove for reasons similar to the rock chestnut oak. (And we go to great lengths to facilitate their reproduction in Somme Woods, where they are stars of the show.) But we’ve cut some white oaks back where their increasing shade is killing off high-quality prairie and savanna vegetation. 

12. Meadow parsnip (Thaspium trifoliatum)      

A true savanna species at Somme. I’d never seen or heard of it when I first saw its little heart-shaped basal leaves in two of the original higher-quality remnant savannaareas. After I’d puzzled out this species’ name, we gathered its seeds and spread them widely around the site. At first we mixed its seeds with those of its less delicate look-alike, golden Alexanders. But this “parsnip” behaved so differently. Golden Alexanders now is common from our sunniest openings to our dappled-shadiest oak woodlands. The meadow parsnip seems to restrict itself to a narrow range: it’s only “in between” – restricted to spots about half way between full sun and dappled shade.    

13. Awnless graceful sedge (Carex formosa)

Midwestern populations of this endangered sedge live mostly north of us, in a few counties of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan. But it is “moderately abundant” in Ontario and Vermont. It was unknown in Illinois until stewards John and Jane Balaban found it in Harms Woods. We never expected to see it at Somme, but as with all our species, the North Branch Restoration Project “hunter-gatherers” of seed collected and put a bit of it in our mixes. It is now widely spread in Somme Prairie Grove and Somme Woods. 

14. Narrow-leaved wood sedge (Carex digitalis) 

Pepoon writes “Dry open places in the wooded ridges of the southeast.” Swink and Wilhelm show it only in Indiana, associating with white and black oak. But Jim Steffen of the Chicago Botanic Garden found it in their McDonald Woods. He gave us some propagated plants in pots which we “introduced” or “restored” (See “The Somme Experiment”). Wilhelm and Rericha have it as “very rare” in Cook County. But their lists of associates are similar to what we find in parts of Somme Prairie Grove. We haven’t seen this plant in years, but we aren’t sure we’d recognize it if we did. Perhaps it’s doing fine? Perhaps it died out because it didn’t belong? Perhaps to restore this part of diversity, we’d have needed to do a better job with it. (Often we find that scattered seeds do better than transplanted plugs. Perhaps we’re just not that smart about exactly where to put the plug. Sometimes animals dig up newly planted plugs.) 

15. Bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata)

This semi-parasitic plant is “a regulator.” It is one of the commonest species in fine prairie and savanna and creates conditions that seem favorable for other species of conservation concern. It was present in Somme Prairie Grove along one swale, where the farmers had never plowed, and where invasive trees hadn’t shaded it out. It grows in patches that spread underground and which, after 40 years, are now extensive. It spreads at the rate of about one foot per year. Thus, it will readily spread 100 feet, but it will take 100 years. We’re impatient. Many of the animals and plants of Somme are vulnerable because their populations are too small. 

We’ve tried propagating it in various ways. Most haven’t worked, or have produced plants that seem feeble, for years. We do now have three apparently new patches, but combined with the spreading originals, they probably cover less than ten percent of the site. Perhaps less than five percent. R&D is needed. 

Marsh speedwell
Delicate, beautiful, and hard to photograph.

16. Marsh speedwell (Veronica scutellata) 

This delicate beauty was gathered as seed from a forest preserves a couple of miles west, along the Des Plaines. It did spectacularly well in Oak Pond, which had been recently opened to more sun, as we girdled the invading and shady green ash trees, that had left the ground bare mud. Soon marsh speedwell literally covered the western half of the pond. We gathered its seeds and broadcast them in what appeared to be suitable places in other ponds. Inexplicably, after some years, Oak Pond seemed to spring a leek. Marsh speedwell has not been seen in Oak Pond in some years. But it now thrives around the edges of three of the other ponds where the seed was broadcast. It also turned up unexpectedly in a little marsh where it lurks under willows and young cottonwoods. We never would have thought to put the seeds there. Some animal or bird likely carried seeds on its feet. We’ll be interested to see how this population does. Co-steward Eriko Kojima suggests we add this species to wet woods and savanna mixes, in addition to the pond mixes.

Prairie violet has leaves divided into narrow "fingers."

17. Prairie violet (Viola pedatifida)

This rare violet has spread in huge numbers over some of the prairie-like open savanna areas. It was probably there in small numbers, unnoticed, when we started. It’s doing best in areas where we’ve restored scores of other rare species that once were its regular neighbors. Restoring without paying much attention is super great, when it works. 

Sweet black-eyed Susan
Here growing with other tall plants including Culver's root, rattlesnake master, ironweed, and Joe Pye weed. This woodland meadow was all buckthorn, a few years earlier. 

18. Sweet black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa). 

H.S.Pepoon described it as frequent along the North Branch, but for many years we could find none. We wondered if we would have to go beyond our 25-mile limit to get seeds. Then we discovered Middlefork Savanna a few miles to the north, where there were vast stands of it. Soon it was one of the commoner plants of Somme Prairie Grove, especially in Vestal Grove where big blooming plants turned the whole grove yellow in late summer. It replaced the tall goldenrod, which was an early dominant. Then it got largely replaced by woodland sunflower. In the photo above, a large part of it will be replaced in time by species more typical of high-quality prairie. From experience, we expect it to thrive especially near trees.

Swink and Wilhelm (1994) initially list its habitat as “edges of moist open woods or thickets adjacent to prairies.” Wilhelm and Rericha (2017) list only prairie habitats. At Somme it now seems not to occur often in our opener prairie-like habitats but remains a major species of thickets and moist open woods. 

 

Wild Carrot or Queen Anne's lace
This photo is from decades ago, when Somme Prairie Grove was more weeds than anything else.

19. Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota)

We pulled a few of these in the early days. But soon they seemed less like problem weeds and more of a useful cover crop. These flowers – like ox-eye daisy – were a pretty indicator of places where we should broadcast additional conservative seed. As the community healed, this “biennial indicator” melted away. We still find it here and there, as a reminder that more conservative seed still needs to be broadcast. It's common in some areas, for example where we've recently cut brush. But overall, it’s mostly gone.  

Seneca snakeroot looks better than this.
It's another plant that's hard to photograph, but worth seeing up close, along the trails.

20. Seneca snakeroot (Polygala senega)

This rare plant turned up in two places in the Somme Prairie site – though not in the prairie itself. One plant was among thin invasive trees. The other plant (or patch?) was along Dundee Road in an occasionally mowed area with hoary puccoon. We never got seed from either, and then they were gone. But we did find seeds in the beautiful Chevy Chase Prairie, and we threw some around Somme Prairie Grove. It did well in two “old field” areas with some prairie or savanna survivors including Kalm’s brome, small sundrops, gray goldenrod, and meadow parsnip. Soon there were dozens of Seneca snakeroots in both places. We began distributing their seeds and seeing them show up widely over the site. Not in great numbers anywhere, but a regular happy presence. Will they be part of the long-term community here? Will they return to Somme Prairie? Will we help them, or start to leave them alone? Each alternative represents a different experiment. We will definitely keep records and try to learn. 

21. Common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) 

This alien was a common sight in the early years of restoration. But like many “weedy” species, it did not fit into the intense competition of the recovering ecological community. It faded out and is gone, without any effort on our part.  

Cream gentian thrives in savannas.

22. Cream gentian (Gentiana flavida)

Once Dr. Betz told me, in a confidential and almost apologetic tone, that cream gentian wasn’t really a prairie species. That was when so many of us had “prairie fever” and sought “true prairie species” as if they were the Ark of the Covenant. Later he agreed with me that it deserved rehabilitation as a fine savanna species – and that quality savanna was indeed probably rarer than prairie. 

In Somme Prairie Grove (mostly savanna) the cream gentians were original but increased to massive numbers with regular fire. On the other hand, none were in the prairie, across the river, until they first showed up along the footpath heading in from the parking lot. Clearly, they had arrived on someone’s feet. Now they and other savanna species are found in Somme Prairie, in disturbed areas. They will likely all drop out (“go back across the river”) as the diverse prairie vegetation recovers. 

Hazel in glorious flower.
Those long dangly things are the male flowers; they'll make the pollen. The tiny purple flowers hugging the twig are the females; they'll receive the pollen and make the nuts. In fall and winter, you'll see those male dangles, already formed, waiting till spring to open. 

23. Hazelnut (Corylus americana) 

In the savannas, it was said to be the major shrub. It was in Somme Woods thirty years ago, but shade killed it, and it no longer survives there. In Somme Prairie Grove there were a few patches, perhaps half a dozen, when we started, mostly along old fence lines. Since then, some patches have been shaded out. In the open, it survived, but barely at first. Every burn would kill it above ground. The next spring, deer would eat the new shoots repeatedly so they rarely got more than a few inches tall. We started caging some of the clumps and protecting them from some of the fires. Now some patches are ten feet tall and produce scores of nuts, some of which we beat the squirrels to. We plant the nuts widely, leading to many new patches. One patch is now big and healthy enough that we give it no protection or help of any kind, and so far it thrives.  

24. Prairie alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii)

This high conservative is frequent in the high quality areas of Somme Prairie. It was present in small numbers, here and there, in Somme Prairie Grove. With management by fire and brush control, we had hoped and expected that it, like all conservatives, would increase. But in the early decades it seemed to dwindle. When we took the trouble to check, we found it was being eaten mercilessly by deer in early spring. We started caging a few and then broadcasting the plentiful seed they produced. For years we saw little result. But now we see more and more plants spread widely across prairie and savanna areas. Perhaps there are fewer deer? Perhaps there are now so many alumroots and so many other tasty early species that the deer get their fill earlier … and let them alone sooner?

Veiny pea inside its cage - with two invertebrate associates. 

25. Veiny pea (Lathyrus venosus)

This species was present on our early plant lists for a number of the North Branch sites, but then it disappeared everywhere. A few years ago in late spring, I happened to notice two leaflets on a half-eaten, unfamiliar stem. It stopped me, and I stared with a vague, confused sense of recognition. There seemed to be no other species it could be, other than the long-lost veiny pea. I clapped a little deer-exclusion cage over the half-eaten puzzle. Sure enough, a distinctive whole leaf grew on this stem; this pea was back, baby. By the next year, it needed a much larger cage. I noticed it “happened to occur” along an old fence line. Sometimes plants survive only by fences in the narrow strip where the ground is never plowed and, over the decades, they find sanctuary from grazing on one side or the other, as owners and grazing regimes change. On a hunch, I walked fence lines, and on the next fence line north, there was another veiny pea, and then a third. More strangely, I was caging the oval milkweed on another fence line and, to my serious amazement, veiny pea appeared in the cage with the milkweed. Pretty soon, sprawling pea vines grew in five caged places, all along old fence lines. You can find some of these refugees growing in deer-exclusion cages on both sides of the West Link trail.

Acknowledgments

Thank you for plant inventories to David Painter, John and Jane Balaban, Jerry Wilhelm, Robbie Sliwinski and many others. Thanks for restoration stewardship to many thousands of generous and fun people.   

Thanks for proofing and edits to Kathy Garness and Eriko Kojima.

Thanks for photos to Lisa Culp Musgrave – well, for most of them anyway. I have to admit I snuck in some of my own, the hyacinth, sweet black-eyed Susan, veiny pea, prairie cinquefoil, and the Spooky and Historic photo of Queen Anne's lace.

Another perspective

How might these results compare with those of other conservationists? 

When I shared the draft of this post with Jim Vanderpoel of Citizens for Conservation, who has had a lot of comparable experience, he generously and unexpectedly sent along his own experiences with these species, as shown below. 

1.           New Jersey tea - CFC never had success with this species.  We may have collected a tiny bit of seed in the early days along the CNWR right of way, but none ever germinated as far as I knew.  We established some in our planting beds and have collected seed from those specimens.  Four years ago I found some foliage that looked like New Jersey tea in one of the best established savannah areas at Flint Creek.  The next year it had some small flowers.  Last year it exploded into bloom and was swarmed with pollinators--I was elated and I thought we finally had it.  Then this year I did not find it.  I have no idea what happened. A couple of specimens were at Baker's Lake and have persisted but not expanded.

2.          Canada milk vetch - We have had two small colonies at Grigsby Prairie for years.  One of the colonies expanded a little over the years.  Then we installed the deer fence and the expanding colony exploded!  We have collected several ounces of raw seed in the last two years.  I have never broken open the seed head to see if it has weevils.  I hope that this huge increase in seed leads to new populations.

3.          Oval milkweed - I have never seen this species.

4.          Prairie cinquefoil - This is one I can't figure out.  We used to collect a decent amount of seed of this plant and it seemed to germinate fairly well.  It does not thrive though.  Tom thought it was due to deer browsing, but it did not explode at Grigsby when we installed the deer fence the way some of the other deer favorites did. I have never noticed the evidence of deer browsing with prairie cinquefoil that I have seen with other plants.  I wonder if there is a problem with our soil.  When Wilhelm and Rericha came out I reviewed in great detail and I noticed that many of the species that have been particularly successful at our restorations are described as "calciphiles" or liking "calcareous soils"--are CFC's gravelly and clay soils too limey for prairie cinquefoil's liking?

5.          Not sure about the perplexed tick trefoil.  I know that paniculatum has done spectacularly well at one of our oak groves in Flint Creek.  It is also abundant at Baker's Lake.  At Baker's Lake cuspidatum is fairly common and glutinosum has formed a few small colonies.  All three are missing from some of the other groves. I did not see any yesterday when I was working at our Flint Creek South preserve.

6.         Stiff aster - This is another mystery plant.  Tom collected from one colony along the CNWR tracks in Palatine and did establish a few specimens at Grigsby Prairie.  They have been declining in recent years and this year I did not find a single specimen in spite of a thorough search.  New specimens always seemed to germinate far from the parent and I now wonder: is this a wind spread species that blew east (and off our property) pushed by the prevailing westerlies?  I have noticed this phenomena with false boneset and rough blazing star.  Restorationists will need to keep moving seed to the west side of our tiny preserves and let the windblown species continually expand to the east.

7.          Sanicle, or black snakeroot - I have never seen this species.

8.          Wild hyacinth - A CFC success story.  It was quite common at Baker's Lake, and has exploded with management.  We have spread this plant to both wet mesic prairie and savannah habitats at Flint Creek and Grigsby.

9.          American sloughgrass - I have never seen this species.  Our new sedge meadow restoration projects would be ideal habitat.

10.        White oak - We have lots of white oak at both Flint Creek and Baker's Lake.  It doesn’t seem to germinate at Flint Creek, but is extremely successful at Baker's Lake.

11.        Meadow parsnip - we had never planted this plant until you gave us some seed last year, which I spread at a likely spot this spring.

12.        Bastard toadflax - Another CFC success story.  We now have scores of round colonies slowly expanding outward at Grigsby.  Some of these came accidently when we rescued hoary puccoon , prairie phlox and shooting star.  However, we found a small patch that surely came from seed at Flint Creek two years ago.    I transplanted three plugs right from the middle of one of our clones, and all three plugs have expanded in their new location, while the original cloned colony was unharmed.
    
13.        Marsh speedwell - I have never seen this species.

14.        Prairie violet - This has always been one of our great disappointments.  We collect seed but only see an occasional specimen.  Well, two years ago I found our first real population--four blooming right in the middle of Grigsby.  I was cautiously optimistic.  This spring I counted thirty-five in the same spot!  Have we finally established a population?  Were they being eaten by deer and the deer fence has saved them?  I have never seen deer pay any interest to violets before.  If the colony continues to grow I am going to collect seed next year and spread it to nearby areas.  If things continue one of our great frustrations will be alleviated.

15,        Sweet black eyed Susan - this plant has been extremely successful at both Grigsby and Flint Creek.  At our preserves it seems to do best in moist (but not saturated) areas especially near the oak groves.

16.        Queen Anne's lace - Our first nemesis when we used to plow and disk before seeding.  Now, it survives only in disturbed areas like along mowed trails.  I pull it out if one gets on my nerves but we don't systematically eradicate it.  Common mullein is also a nonfactor-it comes up at the edge of burn piles, among the rock pile at Grisgby and at new raw areas where we have herbicided reed canary grass.

17.        Seneca snakeroot - We have one thriving population at Grigsby--it blooms by the score on our Second Knoll feature, which is probably our richest prairie restoration.  I don't know where it came from.  We also have a few that came with some of our early plant rescues.  This year I found another dozen or so scattered at Grigsby, presumably from the tiny amount of seed we collect and include in our seed mixes.  At Flint Creek Savannah we have an even more fascinating colony.  It grows with violet wood sorrel and early buttercup on the steepest gravel slope on our East Bluff.  Did these three interesting species somehow survive grazing because of the steepness of that bluff?  No one remembers putting any special seed mix there.

18.        Hazelnut - I envy your success with this plant.  We have collected miniscule numbers of nuts over the years on our Harvard Workday.  None has ever germinated.  We have grown some from seed in nursery conditions and have transplanted a few into our groves at Flint Creek.  Never has any expanded.  Is this species functionally extinct in our area just like our shadblows?  Who knows? Maybe it only germinates in the wild when it is planted by a fox squirrel under just the right conditions.  Maybe it doesn't like our calcareous soil.

19.        Prairie alumroot - this is one of the few plants that CFC established from seeds that were originally collected in the wild, grown inside under nursery conditions, and then transplanted.  We now collect a lot of this seed from our planting beds, which are protected by a deer fence.  I have seen some in scattered locations at Grigsby, so I am beginning to be optimistic on this one too.

20.        Veiny pea - We have long had one small colony each at Flint Creek and Grigsby both of which came by accident with a plant rescue.  The Grigsby colony bloomed and actually set seed for the first time in the first year after the deer fence was installed.  At least five times more flowers were produced this year and dozens of little vines spread like wildfire.  It took just two years of protection!  We need to get hundreds established so the deer can't zero in on it.

Jim Vanderpoel