Plant Quests and Questions - for sixteen species from prairie to woodland

Adventures with ecosystem recovery, 

considered with nostalgia, reverence, and hope - 

in the cold of winter.

Vestal Grove was home to little or no trout lily when we started. But we've thrown seed around, 

and once a plant's established it spreads underground dramatically. 

Hairy and elegant, stargrass is one that's hard to restore by seed, 

because the seed is so hard to get.

We've been raising hundreds in a garden, harvesting a little seed, 

but mostly digging and planting out garden-raised bulbs 

in widely scattered prairie, savanna, and woods areas. 

Bit by bit, dropping their own seed year after year, they spread.

Where we once had none, we now see scores of recruits as much as five or ten feet from those original bulbs. 

The first little purple leaves of prairie betony are often the first spring color we see. Betony is now widespread, because the seeds are easy to gather, and they do very well.

As the central buds unfold, large areas will be bright yellow.

They seem to provost diversity of conservative plants.

Those fringy green leaves to the left are rattlesnake master. 

Shooting star is in no rush. 

From seed, it takes a plant about ten years to grow big enough to bloom in the competition of the wild. When we started at Somme Prairie Grove we had only a few single plants. We've gathered some seed from each, and we let some blow around the parent plants. Now we have hundreds - new plants widely scattered - and big patches where the original ones were. 

Of cream false indigo, we had none at Somme Prairie Grove. We scattered seed from rare remnants where it survived. Now there are hundreds. These days they spread their own seed by rolling like tumble weeds when dry in fall. 

(We also pick and scatter a lot, gathered early, before the weevils eat most of it.)

A few plants of veiny wild pea showed up in our early surveys. 

Then we saw not a one for decades. Deer eat it. 

Then in 2012, one plant showed itself where we'd been scything tall goldenrod. 

We put a cage on it, and in 2013 it was many stems needing many cages. Inspired and looking carefully, we found three more plants widely scattered. Now they all have cages and are patches with scores of stems spread ten or twenty feet from those original survivors.

Better solutions are needed to reduce over-populated deer.    

We have so many close-ups of the prairie white-fringed orchid.

Lisa decided to try to capture its relationship to the ecosystem. 

Other plants, most visible here, if you look close, include Dudley's rush, beard-tongue, gray dogwood, saw-tooth sunflower, spiderwort, Virginia mountain mint, and compass-plant. 

Characteristic of only the highest quality prairies, our few prairie lilies are still widely scattered. A few survived at Somme Prairie but none in the savannas of Somme Prairie Grove. 

At Somme Prairie, we found six in 1998 but only two in 2007.

We started caging them from the deer and sending some the resulting seed to the Chicago Botanic Garden - which started new bulbs for us - which we then planted in the preserves. 

In 2019, steward Eriko Kojima carefully monitored and found 43 plants blooming in Somme Prairie and 53 plants blooming in Somme Prairie Grove.

Dr. Betz always told us that Leiberg's panic grass typifies the finest prairies.

This species has spread massively for us from the limited seed we've gathered. Its chocolate stamens and feathery pistils make gorgeous flowers, if you study them close up.

Thickets of native shrubs and vines are now mostly replaced by buckthorn.

Wild plum flowers may be beautiful. The fruits also have eye beauty - in addition to mouth beauty. 

Here in a tangle with grapes they remind us of how crucial mammals are to the savanna. 

Mammal disperse big seeds. Big fruits and nuts are designed for mammals. 

Of cardinal flower, we had very few, and mostly the deer ate them. We salvaged a few seeds 

and gave them to Bill Valentine who propagated them in his yard. 

Bill returned massive amounts of seed and now these beauties are plentiful in many areas. 

Red flowers have a long-evolved relationship with hummingbirds.  

A celebrity for us in 2013 was rough white lettuce. 

We'd never seen it bloom at Somme Prairie Grove. But it wasn't a surprise, since we finally found nearby native seed and grew the corms for transplant. In this case, the seeds blow widely 

with the wind in their parachutes. It will be a treat to see where the new colonies appear.

Spoiler alert, once again, we haven't seen this species for years. 

Savanna blazing star is recognized by a) long stalks on the flower heads 

and b) flat, green leafy bracts. After much conservation work, 

this species may be ready to come off the Illinois threatened list.

Hint to plant fans: there's an animal in this photo. Look carefully. 

When we started, we thought no black-soil fringed gentians survived within out 15-mile seed-gathering limit. So we made a deal with Dr. Betz, and Larry Hodak harvested 6 capsules 

from Markham Prairie. We paid back the seed with interest 

when nearly 200 plants thrived at Miami Prairie that very first year. 

Being annuals, they're vulnerable to difficult weather and over-abundant deer. 

Some years we've seen none. Some years we see thousands.

When I see a shot like this, I wish I was a pollinator. I want nectar. I want pollen.

Are the fringes just decoration? No, they're there to ward off pilfering ants.

Only welcome here are flying insects that spread the genes from plant to plant.

The prairie gentian is our last flower of fall. 

Its color is so achingly deep. 

Except when warm sunniness inspires the pollinators to fly, this gentian twists to close up tight. 

Bottle gentian never opens at all. Only bumblebees are strong enough to get inside and pollinate.

Gentians protect themselves from crawling bugs, perhaps just too numerous by late fall.

Over evolutionary time, three gentian species came up with three solutions.

Photos by Lisa Culp Musgrave in 2013. Thanks, Lisa, for another year's worth of visual treasure 

to love and ponder. 

Some species accounts updated in 2024.