Thoughts, Illustrated

A moment to re-evaluate, discover, and sometimes ask hard questions. Soon after a spring burn ... when the skeleton of the ecosystem is bare ... before it fleshes out and clothes itself again for another growing season ... we let our minds wander and see what rises to the surface.

Thus, this post will be about (fleetingly in each case):

• increasingly rare plants, benefiting from each other's presence
• helpful burn scars
• a woodhen
• parasites that make positive contributions
• over-populated white-tailed deer 
• wilderness trails
• migrant birds return
• plants that like to grow on top of other plants.

Please skip whatever doesn't interest you. Don't worry, be happy. 

The morning was deliciously foggy. Out of this pond flushed a Virginia rail and a sedge wren, freshly back from the south. Our stewardship is as much for the animals as the plants.  Without sufficient habitat, we lose natural species that would otherwise thrive. We have lost many. So we restore. And many come back.

We don't see the rails often. We do hear their calls. Sometimes one flies up as we walk by. We are glad to feel their neighborly presence. 

At the edge of the oaks, the rare wood betony (red-purple) bloomed side by side with the commoner prairie betony (yellow). Both are Pedicularis canadensis.

We had been puzzled that a fine prairie plant was somehow called "wood betony." But books from eastern states showed this species in woods - and purplish. Then, as our woodland restoration progressed, we started to see purple ones. It's complicated. (See Endnote 1.)

Burn scars shock some people. Looking raw and wounded. They're from tree-clearing last winter and are a valuable part of the woodland ecosystem. Diversity requires such scars ...

... for some biota. Those are the species that evolved for a specialized niche - created when the fallen trunk of an ancient tree finally passes through the final stage of its fire-dependent life cycle. For many trees in savanna and woodland ecosystems, that stage is not rot. It's fire. As these scars succeed they hoist impressive waves of algae, mosses, and vascular plants. The endangered Bicknell's geranium is one of many species that we find only or mostly where wood burns out the competition. 

Fire is an obviously violent part of nature. But there are more destructive kinds of violence:

Our many big cottonwood trees are shady invaders, not typical of a healthy savanna. Their seedlings can't compete in a competitive turf. Their shade kills some species that would otherwise thrive. Is not death by shade a kind of violence? 

Worse in the photo above, the dense shrubs and trees in the background represent a more final brutality. As they wipe out all natural plants and animals beneath, how ruthless should we be in return? We cut, burn, sow, and pamper. 

In Somme Prairie Grove's bur oak woodland areas ...

... we have, over the decades, eliminated or thinned buckthorn, ash, hickory, box elder, and more. At least 90% of the woody stems belonged to invaders. Do these photos show a finished state? Far from it. Although, as above, many of the red oaks (shorter-lived than bur or white) have been helping out by falling down dead, other trees grow bigger. The thin-barked hop hornbeam in the foreground (not much a tree of fire ecosystems) was girdled to kill it. Hornbeams make deep shade. To the top left above, you can see other trees so dense they look like a picket fence. They should go. We'll get to them.

But we find that only with shade reduction at the right pace does a thrillingly complex turf develop. More and more conservative species move around and increase, year after year. But even the much thinned trees above are far too many for this original bur oak woodland.

Oak woodland is belatedly recognized as one of our rarest and most threatened ecosystem types. But our science and culture are only slowly coming to terms with what health looks like for it. Paul Nelson's drawings below may help. Not as sunny as a savanna; not as shady as a forest - oak woodland is portrayed in the third panel down: 

Looking at the same visual from above:

The "herb layer" of the woodland may be as rich or richer than a prairie:

But Somme's woodlands become increasingly rich and healthy only if shade is removed gradually. When we've cut too much shade at once, we get infestations of such aggressive species as tall goldenrod, woodland sunflower, and certain briar species. As our measured work proceeds, as we continue to thin trees and sow conservative seed, we anticipate that diverse good guys will continue to win out. 

Plants shown above: In bloom, wood betony, white trillium, and rue anemone. Leaves represent toothwort (which bloomed earlier) and many later-blooming species including golden Alexanders, elm-leaved goldenrod, and many woodland grasses and sedges, difficult to identify now, but here probably including downy rye, awned wood grass, bur-reed sedge, and many others. What additional species will grow here with a bit more light and time? Possibly yellow pimpernel, cream wild pea, woodland milkweed, robin's plantain, and so many others. We don't know. We'll sow them all. They'll decide among themselves.  

In the open savanna, three scarlet painted cups are visible. This species is almost gone from the region.  We try to help it establish a new population here. The blooming one above is in a deer-exclusion cage. Below it, to the right, is one in a vole exclusion cage. (Later in the year, voles mow down a great percentage of uncaged painted-cups.) A third young plant, uncaged for now, is the purplish, wispy tangle slightly to the left and below the blooming one. How will we divide what time we allot to caging which species this year? 

 

Last year was a painted-cup bonanza, a bit of which is shown below:

Those stakes in the background supported the net that kept the deer out. In this patch we counted 358 plants. Overall we counted 572 plants in 19 separate populations. Too many for us to cage most of them. Is this rare species now doing well enough to hold its own here? At the time, we thought not. Deer and voles consumed many, and as an annual (or biennial), the plant dies at year's end. It will not come back next year, except from seed.  

Since we first seeded this species from a nearby population in 2016, every year it has been a thrill to see the first ones emerge, and then more and more, in some years. But we continue to puzzle over its fickle unpredictability. After saving from deer and voles what seed we can, we broadcast it widely ...

Scarlet Painted-cup Numbers at Somme Prairie Grove

	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
# of plants	45	1	73	29	162	85	101	572

... on wettish soil or dry, in full sun or partial shade. Plants emerge next year in a very few of the seeded areas. Some "sub-pops" thrive in certain small areas year after year, without moving to similar habitat nearby, though seeded there. Other sub-pops thrive in very different areas. In certain spots it shows up for a year or two and then vanishes. Will it return to such areas from time to time, from its seed bank, if one survives? Books and papers don't tell us much. We study it as best we can, in the field. 

Native shrub thickets are now uncommon on most sites and hard to manage. This one is situated in a wet area where most fires, like this year's, burn up to the edge, and the stop. When we pass this thicket during the year's Breeding Bird Census, we regularly see orchard orioles, willow flycatchers, hummingbirds, indigo buntings, and more. They like it.

The shrubs here consist of wild plum (in bloom, above), nannyberry (tall and green now, blooming soon after the plum), two dogwood species and others. These shrubs are occasionally top-killed by especially-hot burns; they then grow back in differing arrangements and proportions. Fun. Without the occasional burning, they'd be replaced by invasive trees.  

Seen from another angle, this thicket shows top-killed gray dogwood to the left and monstrous cottonwoods behind, towering over the mature bur oaks, behind them. Those cottonwoods should go. They likely established here on bare soil caused by farming long ago. 

Or should the cottonwoods stay for now, in part because removal would be so much work. Certainly, they're scenic.

But in their area they "take up all the oxygen in the room." Nature can't recover under their shade and level of water consumption. Many species of importance to savanna biodiversity conservation suffer from too-small habitats. If controlling those cottonwoods rises to the top of next winter's priority list, they'll go.

Counterintuitively, a main problem for oak savannas and woodlands is too many trees. Decades without fire left the bur oaks below too close together. 

We girdled some to kill them. We need to kill more. It's not just the cottonwoods. Tall, skinny trees fighting for the light do not lead to healthy oak woodland. (See Endnote 2.)

But for a different kind of density, here a half-dozen stems of bastard toadflax have helpfully invaded the top of a mound of dropseed grass. The toadflax, wood betony, and scarlet painted-cup are hemiparasites. All three are conservative plants. Toadflax rarely reproduces by seed; it sends creeping underground stems out to look for victims like this grass. Is that a bad thing? No one understands the complexities and balances of ecosystems, especially nearly-lost ones like the tallgrass savanna. Fine scientists like Suzanne Simard and Merlin Sheldrake are helping. We now know that many parasitic animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria play crucial and ultimately healthful roles. In some restored areas, the rare dropseed grass is grossly oversized. The toadflax, betony, and others will bring it into better balance ... and thus open more niches to biodiversity. 

When we began to restore this site in 1980, the patch above was Eurasian pasture grasses and some natural savanna plants that survived heavy grazing. The difficult-to-restore toadflax, luckily, survived thirty feet away on the edge of a wetland. It has since marched up this hill, about one foot per year. Species now seen above also include rattlesnake master and shooting star, from our seed, which will also get credit, later in this growing season, for thick stands of white and purple prairie clover, Leiberg's panic grass, downy phlox, azure aster, and so many others. Fun indeed. 

In this Illinois Nature Preserve, visitors are required to stay on the path system unless authorized to step off for stewardship or scientific study. Somme Prairie Grove includes 2.7 miles of maintained trails, if you walk both inner and outer loops. These footpaths are minimal ...

... but they're designed to resist erosion and are reinforced where they pass through wetlands with the wood of cut invasives. In some places, they need more work. How much of our time should we budget for that in 2024? We volunteers decide. More volunteer help is invited.

In the photo below, a path winds through open savanna.    

... the oaks are mostly small. Farmers had cut most long ago. Bur oak was the principal tree species here. After the Forest Preserve District bought the land for conservation, few bur oaks seedlings grew back. It turned out that they had needed care. Fire burned them. Deer ate their tender shoots. Most today are re-sprouting "grubs" or oak shrubs, at least 20 of which you can see (top-killed by the recent fire) above. But that dark young tree to the right is a bur oak we had protected long enough that it can now fend off the deer and fire by itself. We had for some years maintained a deer-exclusion fence and raked fuel away before burning. One to a few trees per acre are enough for a savanna. How much time will we invest in protecting more? 

In the map below, most trees are invaders. The original bur oaks survived farming in three small areas. Before the significance of natural ecosystems and biodiversity had been recognized, Forest Preserve staff had planted seemingly random tree species including many from other parts of the country and the world. In recent decades we've removed most of these. Bur oaks return, but they're slow.  

The pussy willow patch below has a history. For decades it was a minor presence, stems never more than a foot tall, as it was occasionally burned by fire and the re-sprouting stems then eaten by deer. 

Willows are a valuable component of the wet savanna community. So a few years ago we found time to put a cage around this one, and we watched it grow to a size that seemed secure. We then repurposed the cage to protect some other deserving plant, but somewhat shockingly, buck deer responded by raking their antlers on it last fall until the bark was gone ...

... killing most stems. Scores of new shoots are now emerging, which the deer will probably eat. Cage it again? 

And now a flashback. Each spring, as we finish the winter's work, we notice woodhen nests. On the ground, they are so vulnerable. We keep people away. 

As it happens, a few times each spring, snowfall nearly buries the hen. We see her head in the whiteness. She is devoted.

Today, April 28th, she's still there. Incubation takes 20-21 days. I peek in again on May 2nd ...

... and only egg shells remain. For 14 days, until they can fly, she'll do her best to keep the chicks safe and protected. We emulate her dedication and persistence. 

I forgot about them, until May 5, when I happened to be working on something else and flushed a woodhen which made the characteristic distraction display. As always, I froze and looked. At my feet was the chick below:

As woodchicks always do, it froze. Normally, they're all close together. But I could only see one. Did she somehow lose the others? Life can be hard. 

Acknowledgements

Cook County Forest Preserve staff deserve credit for technical supervision and prescribed burns. We volunteer stewards do most of the rest. Illinois Nature Preserves System staff, Commissioners, and protective laws are important back-up protection, as are Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves. 

Thanks to Paul Nelson (and the Tallgrass Restoration Handbook) for the drawings showing the structure of prairie, savanna, woodland ,and forest. 

Base preserve map by Carol Freeman. Graphic edits by Linda Masters.

Virginia Rail photo thanks to Tinyfishy on Flickr

Thanks for proofing and edits to Eriko Kojima.

Endnotes

Endnote 1

We started calling Pedicularis canadensis "prairie betony" rather than "wood betony" because we only found it in the prairie. The flowers were always yellow. Pepoon wrote "The prairie form is apparently yellow." We'd never noticed partly red ones until they started showing up in Vestal Grove. When we gather the seeds, of course, we don't know what color the flowers were. So we wracked our minds about where these red ones might have come from. Because our plant populations tend to be impoverished by grazing, shade, and fragmentation, we've always tried to gather seeds from as many and diverse natural populations as possible. We remembered gathering a bit of betony seed from deep in Harms Woods. We checked that area in spring and, sure enough, some of the flowers were red. The red form of this plant has the scientific name Pedicularis canadensis forma praeclara. 

Typically, red flowers are adapted to hummingbird pollination. Hummingbirds nest in the woods, not out on the prairie. Could there be a connection here?  

Today the woods at Somme are rich with yellow betonies, because we seeded them there. 
We wonder if the few red ones (which may be adapted to woods?) will increase over time.

Endnote 2

It's good that most people are at least a bit shocked by tree cutting. This planet generally needs more trees, fewer mowed lawns, and fewer paved surfaces. But for biodiversity conservation, there must be at least some areas where natural conditions survive - or are restored if necessary. 

Vestal Grove is the small part of Somme Prairie Grove that still has original bur oaks. All the other big trees on the site are invaders. The Public Land Survey documented the spacing of trees at Somme in 1839. The trees in this area were far apart. As Paul Nelson's drawings suggest, there was in nature every variation of tree density. Today, natural woodlands with widely spaced trees are rare, especially where soils are rich. 

At the west end of Vestal Grove stand two trees (below), each with a huge limb reaching west.

These two trees probably stood on the edge of the prairie - here where the 1839 survey showed the trees ending and the prairie stretching west to the horizon. 

Original spreading limbs of most woodland trees are now shaded out and dead. But these two huge limbs survived in part because we've cleared many of the shady invaders near them. In the parts of the site where we're protecting young bur oaks, the new saplings may be quite magnificent in a mere two or three hundred years.

Typically on the original landscape, most trees didn't have big lower limbs, as they would have likely been burned off by the fires, especially on the edge of the prairie. These two limbs may have stretched west over grazed pasture starting in the early 1800s, when Euro-American settlers began suppressing fire. 

The other natural oak species of Somme Prairie Grove is Hill's oak. In contrast to the thick-barked bur oak, Hill's oak has fire-sensitive bark, is top-killed by even mild burns, and is most often a re-sprouting shrub or "oak grub." (In Somme Woods, to the more fire-protected east, three additional oak species are frequent: swamp white, white, and red oak.) 

We have affection and respect for trees. But we cut some, because we love the ecosystem more. 

How Do They Do It?!

(good conservation, that is) 

Volunteer scientists, advocates, and "people persons" only thrive together.

Human communities, like ecosystems, need diversity to function well. "Diversity" in this case includes a number of different kinds of folks with varied abilities and roles. Given our culture as it is, some may come easiest to some extroverts, or some introverts, or some women, or some men, or to seasoned elders, or to impassioned youth.

A thriving community is powerful and self-sustaining. People contribute what they’re best at and most want to do. For an eco-stewardship community, or a religion, or institution to succeed, many types of leadership are needed. The skills needed for saving biodiversity and planetary health (see Endnote 1) are worth studying and cultivating.

A diversity of skills and interests is what our species has evolved for.

Four skill sets (or four types of people) are described below. Our species evolved as hunter-gatherers – not as rugged individualists. Only groups survived. One member had to be a good hunter, another a good tool-maker, another adept at maintaining group harmony, another at plant identification skills (for food and medicine), another for remembering where the group needed to travel to find food or safety. Is that not why we are born today with such different potentials?

All four of the following abilities can be present, to some degree, in one person. But to work at full throttle, groups need to recognize complementary potentials in many people who join forces compatibly.

There are many variations on how this works. We need to get better at it. Many important Nature Preserves badly need help. Often some dedicated person will have the idea and get the word out, and the various divisions of labor will emerge as other people see need and opportunity.

1. People with Science skills: Botany Buffs and other Nature Enthusiasts  

Many “science types” can’t lead well but readily team with those who can. Some experts on technical matters are inexpert (to put it mildly) at interpersonal dynamics. Many become professionals. Others are so autonomous that they thrive best in their spare time as brilliant photographers, or horticulturalists, or taxonomists on sedges, beetles, mushrooms, birds, or whatever. About independent amateur scientists, the respected psychologist Oliver Sacks wrote:

“This sweet, unspoiled, preprofessional atmosphere, ruled by a sense of adventure and wonder rather than by egoism and a lust for priority and fame, still survives here and there, it seems to me, in certain natural history societies, whose quiet yet essential existences are virtually unknown to the public.”

Then Dr. Sacks (in On The Move, Knopf, 2015, page 330) treks off with a volunteer fern group, all of them happily finding and identifying rare ferns.

Volunteer stewards have helped create a new field, with the advantage of being pre-professional in an important discipline as it comes into existence. And yes, we knew that, in time, the purity of the passion would be challenged by egotisms, competitions, and ultimately bureaucracies and hucksterisms. But in communities, the fervor survives. 

Many types of expertise and perspective best inform our decisions.

Other posts on this blog are rich with accounts of inspiring volunteer leaders like John Navin  Lisa Culp Musgrave, and Robert Betz. Professor Betz, professionally he was a biochemist. But he is not known for accomplishments in that field. He lives today as an exemplar of passionate volunteer leadership.   

2. People with Practical Skills: “Let’s Get Things Done!”

A plant expert may consult with an animal expert when goals are translated into actions. 

These folks seem easier to describe. Everyone automatically depends on them to assure that we have practical plans, that we don’t waste time on dead ends, that everyone stays safe. These folks are often the best ones to coordinate with landowners and bureaucrats. They’re down-to-earth problem solvers.   

Often these people are good at facilitating others so that they will:

• Keep tools in good repair
• Teach skills
• Send reports to landowner staff
• Get media coverage to attract more folks
• Bring treats
• Identify questions where practical research could improve results. Design the experiments and keep the needed records to make it happen. 

We put doom and gloom in the past ... and then celebrate. 

3. Advocates 

Easy to go wrong here. Early environmentalism was big on protest. Long term biodiversity conservation depends on positivity and even (brace yourself) compromise. 

Some advocates can sometimes usefully be protestors. Challenging authorities is often important and good (consider Rachel Carson). But as a general rule, protestors are short-term and on the losing side. They may promote the beginnings of change, but – from national to local levels – in the long run the the ecosystem and the planet needs lasting effort “at the table” where decisions get made. 

Ecosystem recovery is typically not amenable to quick fixes. Forces of good care need staying power – at least for many years – ultimately for centuries. From global to village questions, grass roots buy-in is key. At some level, all groups need strategy, politics, consensus building, and timing. The “consensus building” part is key throughout.

The advocate is someone who sees potential roadblocks and opportunities, and then acts. How do we change counterproductive statewide herbicide regulations? How do we stop fly-dumping in this prairie? Is there some dramatic initiative that would result in the general public prizing biodiversity? A consensus of love for and understanding of the planet and our future is needed.   

4. People persons. 

Human potential facilitators. Glueballs. There’s got to be a better name for this category. 

Facilitators of team spirit? A group needs one or more people who everyone wants to be with. Many times such people stay in the background and are little noticed for their profound impacts. Other good leaders are wise to appreciate them, learn from them, and chip in some of the same kind of work.

These people do what they do because they appreciate or love other people and are committed to the cause. Sometimes their job is to notice that two possibly-a-bit-shy people would hit it off productively ... and just introduce them with a few words that could point them in the right direction. Sometimes they’ll notice a potential for misunderstanding and clear it up. Often they know their power, but don’t let on, because they know that would work against their valuable purpose. At other times, such people become the principal leader – although they try to minimize the “big leader” dynamic. 

And how about the people who don’t fit any of these categories but make substantial contributions? See Endnote 2 for them.  

We learn and exchange ideas ... as we gather seeds to broadcast ... after we cut malignant brush. 

Summary

In midwestern North America, agencies (government and not-for-profits) own the land most important to biodiversity. Thus, conservation volunteers and professionals must work together well. To do that, the volunteer organizations need to maintain their independent strength. (See Endnote 2.) Volunteers who “sit around waiting for someone to tell them what to do” will not by themselves have the creativity or leadership needed. This post tries to define some of the components necessary for volunteer communities to flourish effectively. Learning to be good at this may be crucial to the future of the planet.  

End Notes

Endnote 1. Examples from Audubon, Jefferson, and Mandela.

Saving the planet's biodiversity may be the most crucial and irreversible challenge of this age. To succeed, we need not-for-profits, government institutions, local volunteer communities, and more. National conservation organizations discover opportunities, change directions, rise and fall. One of this post's authors (Packard) has held leadership roles in The Nature Conservancy and the National Audubon Society. The Conservancy may change direction based in part on the views of super-wealthy board members (whose huge support allows the Conservancy to do huge things). State and National Audubon Societies may change direction based in part on unruly local chapters (with internal battles sometimes seeming to benefit from inspiring passions). Local organizations, untrammeled by national ones, may sometimes be the consistent "heart and soul" of the mission. 

Most of the members were then volunteers when we began the Natural Areas Association (NAA) (1974) and the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) (1988). That changed. Bill Jordan, editor of an influential early journal (Restoration and Management Notes), warned us at the time that his dad had seen what happened to idealism, decades earlier, during the formation of the societies of foresters and ecologists. He compared the process to the American Medical Association. It started as a few generous and visionary medics working toward public health and inexorably evolved into a self-interest vehicle for rich doctors. That’s not to say that it doesn’t do much good. But it’s no longer mostly about generosity, vision, and public spirit. And it does some bad. Both SER and NAA began with the loftiest of ideals and have become something like labor unions, which have a valuable place in society, but may focus narrowly. In some ways, we volunteers can do more. 

For a sustainable and healthy Earth, the changes needed may be as fundamental as those faced by future Americans in 1776 when they chose to separate from England. Establishing a new culture was a crucial part of that "revolution," and new culture is needed now. So we study.

We don't want to look too much for guidance to slave-owning politicians. But, as a builder of national community, Thomas Jefferson accomplished a lot. The skills needed for success at planetary health may be different, especially at the local level, but we need regional, national, and global change too. An insightful contrast below between Presidents Jefferson and Madison is worth some thought:  

 

“The most decisive difference between the two presidents lay in their approaches to party leadership. Jefferson cajoled his ... allies into doing what he wanted, sharing secrets and demanding loyalty. Madison did not have this ability. To put it indelicately, only Jefferson knew how to seduce. He courted the faithful and sought out the young, the suggestible. His skill as a letter writer enabled him to convince his associates that their ideas and services were important. He knew how to soothe wounded egos – a political skill not sufficiently appreciated.”

                From the book Madison and Jefferson

                by Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg. Page 478  

 

Perhaps there’s a dishonesty implied above. That is certainly not what biodiversity needs. Perhaps for our purposes, Burstein and Isenberg’s passage could be rewritten this way:

 

“What abilities are most needed in building constituency and community for conservation? Good leadership helps many of us to pull together in the same direction. It’s helpful to recognize receptive people, to share insider secrets and visions, and to promote mission loyalty. While being true to yourself and honest, it’s key to recognize that some words will be meaningful to “the already faithful,” other words to young people deciding where to invest themselves, and others to the general (not yet much interested) public. Skill with language is key – as is ability to recognize differently expressed but compatible (or ultimately superior) themes in other people’s words. If your associates have ideas and abilities that are potentially important, not only is it imperative to hear them, but at least equally so to facilitate the ability that other person to recognize what they can achieve. And lastly, it’s crucial to know how to soothe wounded egos – a skill not sufficiently appreciated.”

Jefferson and Madison, as slave-owners, are no longer inspiring as individuals. In more recent history, Nelson Mandella inspired many as a courageous, wise, effective leader. But the challenges South Africa continues to face remind us how many devils are in how many details. Good change needs more than a leader. A creative consensus on saving biodiversity and the planet needs to be global - and local too. 

Thus, at the local level conservation volunteers and professionals must work together well. For that, crucially, the volunteer organizations need to maintain their independent strength. Volunteers who “sit around waiting for someone to tell them what to do” will not have the creativity or leadership needed. That's why this post tries to define some of the components necessary for volunteer communities to flourish.  

Endnote 2. Celebrating everybody.

What about the hard worker? The come-and-goer? The rank-and-file?

In addition to the above “keystone” characters, others in a community seem less central, as they may drop in and out of as life allows. Or they’re “regulars” who inspire us with quite dedication. Or people who may have been leaders during their careers but want to relax by spending a bit time outdoors and not think quite so much. Some may in time, unexpectedly to themselves, become great leaders, given tactful mentorship and inspiration. But some may simply show up week after week, ask what to cut or pull or gather, and go home, having contributed. 

Often, it’s not easy to know who, among new volunteers, will become a nature nerd, a people person, or whatever. (That said, sometimes it’s obvious in five minutes.) But even those who don’t fit neatly into any of the above four categories make up an important part of a group. Perhaps they’re not quite a social engineer – but, over a snack, they might bond with a future leader, inspired by friendly conversation. Or they’ll show up and work tirelessly to eliminate buckthorn in an important area, without asking why or talking to anyone. A thriving community has many leaders, but also many people who join for a day, a month, a decade – and experience a relationship with the ecosystem that may enrich their lives. And whether they fully know it or not – they also enrich the lives of co-workers, plants, animals, and the Earth. 

Other Communities

For the perspectives of a varieties of communities, check out: 

Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves

The Prairie Enthusiasts

The Stewardship Network

Wangari Maathai and the Greenbelt Movement 

Saint Kateri Conservation Center

Wangari Maathai enlisted women throughout Kenya to plant trees. The men were more interested in knocking her unconscious, putting her in jail, and charging her with "spreading malicious rumors, sedition, and treason," for a while. But in the end, consensus came, along with her Nobel Peace Prize.

Do you have other good examples to suggest? Make suggestions through "Comments" (below).

Acknowledgements

This post was written by many: first draft by Stephen Packard, with many edits and new directions by Jonathan Sabath, Amy Doll, Christos Economou, Eriko Kojima, and Rebeccah Hartz. All of us and many others have been working with Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves to develop much-needed biodiversity conservation communities as described above including the Plank Road Prairies, Langham Island, Shaw Woodland and Prairie, Short Cemetery Prairie, Kishwaukee Fen, Middlefork Savanna, Pilcher Park, Morton Grove Prairie, the Somme Preserves, Illinois Beach, and many others. 

Both ecosystems and people have evolved for diversity.
Only people have evolved for parties!

An Orchid Reveals its Secrets

By Stephen Packard and Lisa Musgrave

 

Dozens of volunteers have been “species stewards” for the prairie white-fringed orchid (Platanthera leucophaea) – a plant on the federal Threatened list. Most of the earth’s small populations of this species are in “The Prairie State” – and volunteers for the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) carefully monitor every known population. In 2023, a very dry and poor year for these orchids, a total of 223 plants were found at nineteen Illinois sites. At twelve of those sites, five or fewer orchids were recorded. Non-blooming plants can be hard to find; many more plants were likely surviving as leaves only, building their roots and waiting to bloom in a year with better weather. When the FWS approved its national Recovery Plan for this species and began recovery efforts in 1991, the Somme effort was adopted as a model. Seed is spread to potential good habitat, and at many sites emerging plants get “intensive care” to allow populations to build. Illinois numbers have varied from a low of 109 plants in 2006 to a high of 2,287 plants in 2020. In that good year, Somme contributed 540 plants to the tally. The United States Fish & Wildlife Service annually takes pollen and seeds from Somme to begin or enrich populations elsewhere.

Orchid in "Intensive Care." A stake of cut brush supports a deer-exclusion cage. Inside it is a vole-exclusion cage. The pink flagging indicates that this orchid has been hand pollinated.  

In more than four decades of careful work and study, the Somme Team has learned:  

• These plants don't stay put.
• A “fairy ring” of orchids suggests a possible explanation.
• Widely broadcasting seed can produce dozens to hundreds of new plants.
• Habitat management is key.

Details below: 

These plants don't stay put.

Unlike most conservative plants, prairie white-fringed orchids seem to do well in an area for a few years and then disappear, emerging in other areas where we never saw them before or had not for years. We have in some cases initially broadcast seed in various places that seemed good, with no results. Then after maybe ten or twenty years of occasional seed broadcast, we find a plant or two, then in a few years more, and many more for five or ten years, then few or none in that area. It’s happened impressively in at least eight areas at Somme Prairie Grove and Somme Prairie – both Illinois Nature Preserves. 

Orchid pollinia. Orchid pollen doesnt travel to other plants as dust, like most species, but in dense, sticky packages called pollinia. They adhere to a toothpick or the tongue (or head) of a hawk moth by an adhesive patch, shown clearly above. 

A clue from a “Fairy Ring” 

Why do these populations come and go? A curious phenomenon provides a clue. For reproduction, this orchid depends on a fungus. Some mushrooms are frequently found in circles called fairy rings. Such rings form because, as an underground mass of mushroom mycelia grows, it may use up something in the soil, and the advancing front of underground mushroom “mycelia” moves out to areas that have what it needs. When the mushrooms (the spore-bearing “fruits” of the mycelia) emerge, they rise out of that advancing circle. 

Fairy ring mushroom photo from University of Arkansas: https://www.flickr.com/photos/uacescomm/50301990921/ 

We’d never heard of a fairy ring made up of plants, but we found one. For many years, we had broadcast orchid seed in one swale that looked like good orchid habitat but where no orchids had been seen. Then in 2009, finally there was one beautiful orchid. It stood there by itself for years, quite a big one. We caged it and stabilized the cage with a metal stake. We ended up calling that area “the stake area.”

It flowered annually for 8 years (missing one). That’s unusual. Most prairie white-fringed orchids die a year or two after first flowering. FWS research shows that the average life of these orchids after first flowering is 1.2 years.

Then dramatically in 2014, a full circle of 22 orchids arose around the big staked one. The plants in the circle averaged 2.5 meters from the original plant. Most were young plants (“two-leafers”). Over the years, some bloomed, set seed, and passed into history. But many more orchids, gradually spread up and down the swale, farther and farther from the long-gone original orchid.

To reproduce, the almost invisibly tiny orchid seeds must sprout and live underground parasitically or symbiotically with the fungus, sometimes for years, drawing nutrients from the fungus. With this in mind, there are many possible hypotheses that might explain the fairy ring observations. One is that the fungus this orchid depends on is not everywhere in the soil of orchid habitat. The fungus may deplete the resources it needs in some areas as it spreads to others. Perhaps the orchids reproduce successfully only where the fungus is thriving at that time.

Most of these rare orchids only flower for a year or two before dying and making way for new ones. All seed in early years at Somme resulted from hand pollination by trained volunteer stewards, who feel privileged to do it. In recent years, small amounts of "natural" pollination by hawk moths has been observed. 

Numbers of blooming orchids grown from the 190 plants found in 1991 when the U.S. Fish & Wildlife recovery plan began. But annual numbers increase and decrease dramatically. 

Widely broadcasting seed can produce dozens to hundreds of new plants.
We’ve experimented with various approaches to spreading the orchid seed, and more careful experiments are worthwhile. But our only proven practice has been to scatter seeds widely. We like to do it on a windy day; sometimes we just break capsules and wave them around; or we tie capsules on a tall plant and let the wind gradually blow all the seeds in various directions over days or weeks. The seeds find the right places.

One example of an experiment: The Great Transects Test. We measured out a few straight lines near a distinctive glacial bolder in what appeared to be good orchid habitat. Then we marked off intervals, kept careful records, and planted orchid seed by a variety of methods:

• Planting on the surface, just dropping seeds into the prairie duff
• Pulling the duff away and dropping seeds on the exposed soil surface
• Same as above, but we “roughed up” the soil a bit, to get some seeds underneath.

Then, for the latter two approaches, we also tried:

• Mixing seed with sand (making it easier to separate or un-clump the tiny seeds)
• Mixing with cornmeal (because we worried that the sharp sand might injure the seeds) 

This was a lot of work, but science requires that. For the results, we found we did not require a lot of statistical analysis. No orchid emerged in or near any of those transects. A couple of decades later, orchids did emerge in a different part of this swale and gradually spread to the area of the Great Transect.

Question: What’s the meaning of this experiment, in practical terms? Answer: We’re not smart enough to figure out exactly where this orchid ought to be. An individual orchid can make 100,000 seeds. Wind and chance may bring a few of those seeds to the right places to start a new plant.

Orchids typically produce tiny seeds in huge numbers. They blow everywhere, but they contain little beside DNA. They cannot grow into a plant without connecting with a fungus that supplies what most plants get from the endosperm, embryo, radicle, cotyledons and other famous seed parts that most plants have, but orchids do not. 

Orchid capsules, tied to a sunflower stalk, so the seeds can blow around at a new possible orchid area. 

An orchid stem cut and sectioned by voles. Early in the year, voles cut stems of orchids (and other plants) that human hands have touched, as we've seen again and again, perhaps because they smell or taste something that makes them curious. Later in the season, as shown here, voles want to get at the ripening seeds. So they cut the stem at vole height, pull down the rest of the stem, and cut it again, and again, until the seeds are in reach, without the vole having to climb and expose itself to predators. 

Habitat management is key

The very first area where we saw these orchids, four or five years after broadcasting seeds in many areas, worked well as habitat for them for a few years. Then it started growing a dense stand of saw-tooth sunflower. The orchids faded out there, as did the diverse vegetation that had comprised the orchids’ associates. We decided to cut (scythe) those sunflowers a couple of times a year to see what would happen. After a few years, diverse vegetation including a few orchids had returned. Then we moved on to other concerns and experiments. Now that area is dense with gray dogwood - again without orchids. This drama is a reminder that Somme Prairie Grove is still in early-stage restoration (or mid-stage? … time will tell).

The overall goal of the work at Somme Prairie and Somme Prairie Grove is to restore the full diversity of natural prairie and savanna grasslands. The management consists of frequent (annual or biennial) burns, reduction of alien or native invasives, and seeding with locally gathered seed. 

The prairie white-fringed orchid has never been successfully grown in gardens. They live at Somme with some human protection - but much impacted by the challenges of nature. Here the photo shows a vole cage, one orchid stem, many stems of something else that the cage also protects (and thus perhaps has unnatural vigor), that same species clipped by voles to the left of the cage, three young tree or shrub stems that will be controlled by fire or loppers, and a crayfish burrow bringing subsoil to the surface. 

We mostly don’t pay attention to individual species except in the cases of especially rare or conservative ones that seem to need some help getting started. But in time those species will have to make it on their own – in the bosom of the ecosystem. Plants sometimes grow for a while in places where we seeded them, only to fade out as the conservative competition increases and show up where we didn’t seed them, but where seeds of those temporary plants had travelled. Good for them! Over the years, larger and larger areas have become diverse habitat for many conservative species, including this orchid. How much intensive care will it continue to need? In 2020 with 540 orchids, Lisa stopped trying to cage them all.  286 of those orchids bloomed, of which Lisa and team caged 156. Of the uncaged ones, 61 were eaten by deer, about half. Many species at Somme are badly depleted by overpopulated deer and need exclusion cages until the deer population is reduced – if they are to survive at Somme. 

An orchid emerging in late spring. As Lisa says, "They are beautiful even then." We try to find and install deer-exclusion cages at that time, or too many get eaten. 

One rough experiment suggested that the needed hawk moths are now plentiful enough to do at least some of the pollination. The time we stewards spend caging and pollinating is time we can’t devote to other needs of this recovering ecosystem. Still at this point, our impression is that if we stopped intensive care, this federal Threatened species would be lost from Somme … or perhaps merely reduced to a small number of plants. We have little enthusiasm for trying the “no action” experiment now. We continue to learn. The adventure continues. 

Endnote

An earlier blog post on this orchid at Somme is Chapter 1 to this post's Chapter 2. 

Some people ask, aren't you concerned about revealing the location of this rare plant? My first response is always, yes, I'm concerned, but there's a balance to be considered. If no one celebrates rare plants, they won't get the care they need. Many populations have been lost by neglect.

Another response is that that cat is already out of the bag. Somme's orchids are already identified in many books, papers, conferences, and indeed in this blog. 

But perhaps the main reasons that these orchids haven't been poached is that 1) many people realize that this plant is so tied to the ecosystem that if you dig one up, it will just die and 2) the Somme preserves are well populated with caring people who do a great job at keeping an eye on the place. We would call the police, of course, if needed. But it's kind of inspiring that, except for garbage dumping around the edges, only people with reverence for nature seem to spend time here. 

Acknowledgements

Photos by Lisa Musgrave and Stephen Packard

The Somme preserves are owned and management supervised by the Cook County Forest Preserves.

Most of the day to day restoration is conducted by Friends of the Somme Preserves in partnership with the North Branch Restoration Project. 

Thanks to Eriko Kojima for helpful proofing and edits (and certainly more for her fine work on orchid habitat restoration).