The Diversity and Promise of Shaw Woods, Savanna, and Prairie

This photo essay describes an incomparable 134-acre Illinois Nature Preserve...

... that is calling out for help.

There may be no other place in the region where a very high-quality prairie thrives close to fine remnant (easily restorable and connectable) oak woodland and savanna. That’s richness. 
 
These three remnant ecosystems comprise a gem of the region – and a gem worthy of more friends. Thus, we’re planning the kick-off of a new initiative on October 2^nd. 
 
The moment
 
Most of our finest prairies are deteriorating or barely holding their own. How important is Shaw? Highly respected ecologist Marlin Bowles, then of the Morton Arboretum, evaluated all the region’s prairies, with a grant from Chicago Wilderness a few years back. In Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan most prairie had deteriorated because of insufficient care. Bowles found that Shaw and Somme were the two best classic prairies in the region. Yet both need more and better care, and both are starting to get it. (See Endnote 1: History and References)
 
This post will try to tell the stories of Shaw through photos.
 
Our first photo, if you understand it, evokes the first strains of scary music in a horror show:

That woody arch is invading the best prairie. Before long, ecologically speaking, woody shade could kill all.
 
But below is the real horror:

Brush, some dense, now stretches off for acres. High quality prairie survives in the dark clutches of prairie-killing woody plants. There is much Grade A prairie under the brush – and even more restorable Grade A. If all were dead, the horror would be over. No, the strangulation is in process. The irreplaceable remnant prairie is gasping for light. As a reminder, here’s how the best recovering parts will look next spring:

The richness of the vegetation here indicates the survival of much other rare biota (fungi, invertebrate animals, etc.). Diverse, rare, conservative plants fill every square foot, with displays changing every week or two from spring and summer through fall. A priceless treasure. Irreplaceable. Our top priority, defeat the brush without harming the living treasure beneath. It takes many dedicated hands and minds, but it can be done.
 
Early vision
 
Initial credit for saving this preserve goes to architect Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926). Few noticed back then. He did. For a while The Nature Conservancy owned parts of it but wisely turned them over to the local Lake Forest Open Lands Association (Open Lands).   

Great credit also goes to the Open Lands’ team; they’ve surpassed most conservation land managers, which is why this prairie still rates so high. But we’re rapidly learning that nature needs more care than we thought. "It takes a village,” or at least “a community” to provide the ongoing, dedicated, thoughtful care that an ecosystem of this quality needs and deserves.
 
So, this summer, Open Lands got together with the Friends (Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves) and launched a new chapter in this history.
 

Some History

Decades ago, kids used to burn this remnant every year at Halloween. It was a neighborhood tradition. The best prairie is surrounded by water and normally un-burnable buckthorn, so the kids got away with it, to the lasting benefit of the ecosystem. 

The very-high quality area is said not to have been grazed much by horses or cattle, perhaps because of the wetlands surrounding it. Eastern parts of the prairie were lightly grazed, but many species (including the normally grazing-sensitive purple prairie clover) survive there and can be supplemented with seeds gathered nearby. 

The Plan
Well, there is no plan. Sure, there’s a framework, and there are ambitions. But the real on-the-ground plan will be made in cooperation with the people who adopt this place and demonstrate how much we can aspire to.
 
Prairie does not survive too close to trees. The map below shows the approximately 15 acres that could most quickly be restored to high quality. Some of the larger ecosystem is owned by supportive neighbors in adjacent houses. But these central 15 acres are owned by Open Lands, who are great partners and eager for us all to get started here.

In the larger context, below, you see the prairie on the right, Shaw Woods to the west, and the remnant savanna (McLaughlin Meadow) to the south of the woods. To knit this complex healthily back together 

will take a great many skills and dedications: seeds, loppers, chain saws, cages to protect rare plants until there are enough to reproduce and stand on their own, controlled burns, and monitoring of plants, birds, butterflies and others, so we can learn and improve our stewardship. 
 
Why do prairies, oak woods, and savannas need (and deserve) so much care?
 
Biodiversity can be restored sustainably. But, left alone, in these times, it’s challenged by altered hydrologies, climate, fragmentation, invasive species, and more. Decades ago, we conservationists were lulled into misjudgment by our rush to preserve the last of nature before it was gone … coupled with the nearly religious belief that, if left alone, nature ought to be able to take care of itself. Now we’re learning better, bit by bit.
 
Consider the savanna remnant here, blandly called McLaughlin Meadow. Decades ago it was thought of as not quite so good a prairie as Shaw. That was wrong. Yes, it has suffered more degradation, but it’s not a prairie.
 
Many species, as in the photo below, reveal its true nature. 

The yellow stargrass might be found in a prairie, but the white grove sandwort is more typically savanna. McLaughlin has scattered bur and scarlet oaks along with large amounts of such savanna shrubs as New Jersey tea and meadowsweet. It boasts such herb species as:
Arenaria lateriflora – grove sandwort
Asclepias purpurascens – purple milkweed
Baptisia leucantha – white false indigo
Carex pensylvanica – Penn sedge
Gentiana flavida – cream gentian
Lathyrus venosus – veiny pea
Luzula multiflora – wood rush
Vicia americana – purple vetch
… none of which are in the Grade A Shaw prairie, and all indicate savanna rather than prairie origins. 
 
The superficially attractive view below is more typical. The plants in bloom are New England aster and sawtooth sunflower, both fine plants in their ways, but their ways are as increasers after some degradation. Most of the rest of what’s visible is brush.

 

As high quality black-soil savannas are even rarer than prairies, this rich but battered remnant deserves to be as hallowed as Shaw Prairie. Its recovery potential for savanna birds and butterflies is especially high, as all those “edge” woods and thickets that surround Shaw Prairie harbor many savanna species (and recovery potential). The edges we will always have with us. Let’s help them be all they can be. (Every time we go there we pull some garlic mustard, on rock above, or some other invasive. With an expanded crew, they can be history.) 
 
The photo below shows woodland seeds, in this case blue cohosh, begging to be gathered and broadcast into receptive ground. Shaw woods is a patchwork of rich remnants intermixed with large areas of thuggish species that choke out quality (including alien honeysuckle and bittersweet, and buckthorn along with equally problematic briars and tall goldenrod). More fire and seed are needed. 

Shaw Woods has the potential to be of dazzlingly high quality. Like many woods, the spring flora survives with thick beds of trilliums and yellow violets. But unlike most woods these days, Open Lands has kept this grove of bur and white oaks sunny enough for survival of the summer and fall flora. It features such species as:
Amelanchier arborea – Juneberry
Aralia nudicaulis – sarsaparilla
Brachyelytrum erectum – long-awned wood grass
Carex grayi – bur sedge

Cirsium altissimum – woodland thistle
Corylus americana – hazelnut

Hylodesmum glutinosum – pointed tick-trefoil

Solidago caesia – blue-stemmed goldenrod

The little fragment of good woodland has these plus a long list of other fine woodland species. And there's a great deal of adjacent degraded woods that this quality could expand into.
 
Now Come the Stewards
Seeking nimble fingers, eager minds, lovers of learning, strong backs, plant ID skills, dedication to a brighter future for people and nature (not everyone needs to have everything): both Open Lands and the Friends hope the stewards community forming here will be a training ground and inspiration for similar initiatives at other needy sites. (Essentially all preserves are needy).  

Here, Emma Leavens and Eriko Kojima gather seeds as they prep for October 2^nd.

If you’re too busy elsewhere but have the ability to help lead and provide momentum in the early stages of this effort, please help! If you’re perhaps a beginner, but might be sufficiently curious to try working with this new team for a while, please help!
 
In early September, azure aster blooms and other fall species start to swell their buds.

Next spring, in the same area, scarlet painted cup, hoary puccoon, and bastard toadflax will kick off another season. And with our good efforts, they and all the world will thrive increasingly, on into the future. 

Endnote 1. History and references
 
Among ecologists, “prairie” refers to the classic ecosystem on rich soils. “Sand prairie” is much less rare and much better represented in preserve systems. The contrast is even greater between rich-soil savannas and woodlands compared to sand savanna and sand woodland. Many species of rich soil ecosystems are not represented in the commoner sand preserves. The classic ecosystem that made the Midwest so rich and important to the world's food supply was our black soil prairie. Preserved genes from rich-soil preserves may be invaluable to the future of agriculture. 
 
When Marlin Bowles told me (SP) that the Somme and Shaw Prairies represented the best surviving eastern tallgrass prairies that he knew, I started spreading the word. Not to take away from the many other fine and needy preserves, I wanted to be especially sure that we took good care of these two.  
 
Shaw is quite different from Somme. The mesic (average moisture) parts of Somme are thick with cream false indigo, prairie lily, and prairie gentian. Shaw has none. Somme had no prairie clover or scarlet painted cup (until the latter was restored with seeds from Shaw). Some of the differences certainly reflect the stresses the two sites have endured. Overall, the wetter components seem to have survived better at Shaw and the drier at Somme. But both have great remnants of both. Neither have high quality dry or dry-mesic prairie. 
 
The official Nature Preserve description of Shaw can be found at: 

https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/INPC/Pages/Area2LakeSkokieRiver.aspx
 
Two good references are:
 
Bowles, Marlin L. and Michael D. Jones, Repeated burning of eastern tallgrass prairie increases richness and diversity, stabilizing late successional vegetation. Ecological Applications, 2013.
 
Bushey, Charles L. and Robbin C. Moran, Vascular Flora of Shaw Prairie, Lake County, Illinois. Transactions, Illinois State Academy of Sciences, 1978.

A request for photographers

Do you have better photos of Shaw? They could help build this intiative. Photos from other seasons? Birds or butterflies or other biota? Please send them to us at the Friends.

Acknowledgements

Thanks for edits and suggestions to Eriko Kojima.