In Bloom and Flight: Late June, 2018

Blossoms opening every AM.
Remnant-dependent butterflies flit - and pose.
Songbirds feed chicks.
These photos show Somme Prairie Grove in late June.

Flowers and pollinators depend on each other.
Here a hairstreak works on wild quinine. 

The uncommon purple milkweed has become frequent in the Somme savannas.
Deep purple flower clusters and somewhat purplish leaves, for some reason.
Here it's backed up by prairie sundrops. 

Now in the foreground, prairie Indian plantain.
Mostly here we're just looking at buds.
The few open flowers have their yellow reproductive parts sticking out, eagerly. 

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Indigo bunting males are easy to see and sing constantly. Many pair have their little territories.
They've raised one brood and are nesting again.

The females don't stand out so much. They're shy, subdued, and busy. Once the nest is built, they'll be sitting on the eggs.
Both defend the nest and feed the chicks. They help keep insect populations in balance. 

The monarchs flew here from Mexico. Then laid their first eggs.
Caterpillars ate, grew, and re-arranged their chemicals inside their chrysalises.
Now this one is freshly emerged - new to the world -
its color more intense than the butterfly milkweed that feeds it. 

These beauties also starting to bloom. Often hidden. Sometimes visible from the trail.
Federal endangered. Please don't post their name searchably on the Internet.
We won't list it here. With or without a name, it's precious.
The only insects that can pollinate it are a few uncommon hawkmoths. 

The precious pale spike lobelia (light blue) is here upstaged by black-eyed Susan.
We rejoice in the lobelia, because it is typical of high-quality prairies and savannas.
We embrace the Susan, because it thrives from the best prairies to the meanest vacant lots. 

A few scarlet painted cups still bloom.
Here they barely emerge out of lead plant and rosinweed. 

Spiderwort has been blooming for a long time, but only in the mornings.
On sunny afternoons, they're mostly closed up. Why? 

Great spangled fritillaries love the sun and heat.
Their caterpillars eat violet leaves in the cool of spring.
The adults emerge and fly when the purple milkweed blooms.
That long tongue is drinking sweet nectar as the photo snaps.  

Delicate winged loosestrife thrives where the paths pass through wetlands. 

Under the denser oaks, the "sulfur shelf" or "chicken of the woods" shows off.
But we just pass through briefly, because the sunny savanna steals our attention today. 

Among Somme's many nesting birds of conservation concern is the northern flicker.
This unusual woodpecker feeds mostly on the ground, among the vegetation, on ants. 

This flicker chick is hungry. Most young birds eat mostly insects.
Better them than us? 

In the open savanna we are arrested by one of the grassland's rarest plants. 

The prairie lily is very special.
And this year, for the first time, we have them in spades, eleven plants in bloom or bud,
visible from the trails in many places. 

You can tell the prairie lily from the much commoner Michigan lily by the fact that this one's flower doesn't nod.
It stands so proudly and preciously erect. 

It's one of the most "conservative" of the grassland species - rarely found away from such high quality species as those shown here: dropseed grass, lead plant, and compass plant. 

And the prairie lily (Lilium philadephicum andinum) gives us a lot to think about. The deer eat them mercilessly. Prairie lilies (and some other conservative species) can be extirpated from a site by too many deer. So we cage them, hoping their population will build. But we've also found, even in their habitats in the highest quality original prairies, perhaps because of the reduction in predators, overabundant voles chop them down and eat their seeds. Voles (cute little gerbil-like creatures) can consume every plant. So the little collars inside the deer cage sometimes protect them from those ground-hugging rodents. We stewards try to find solutions. You'll see the cages if you visit. Please don't disturb them. 

Lead plant in bud. Butterfly milkweed in bud.
Huge flowerings coming soon. But by then, what we see now will have departed until 2019.

If you'd like to visit this recovering wilderness, July, August, and September are all highpoints. But come now if you'd like to see these plants. It's too late to see the yellow pimpernels, downy phloxes, alumroots, and veiny pea flowers shown on this blog, blooming just two weeks ago. 

A rich diversity of plants and interdependent animals. We're blessed to have them in our midst. Directions, trail guides, and more at the Somme website. 

Credits

Thanks to Lisa Culp Musgrave for the bird photos.

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

Thanks to the Cook County Forest Preserves and scores of dedicated and high-spirited stewards for the health of the ecosystem. 

A more technical (but not all that technical) discussion of some of these same photos and issues will be published soon in the Strategies for Stewards blog.

More info and volunteer work schedules (everyone welcome) at: the Somme website.

What's In Bloom? mid June. Somme Prairie Grove.

Photos of more than 50 wildflower species and a few habitat scenes - from footpaths that wind through groves and openings. 

Scarlet Painted Cup and Purple Vetch.
The scarlet painted cup, now rare, was once typical of our finest prairies and especially savannas.
The purple vetch is a sprawling savanna vine.

A morning glory - hedge bindweed. Its halberd-shaped leaves are distinctive.
Its vine is wrapped around old and new stems of Illinois rose - in a thicket that favors them both.

Although Illinois rose won't bloom for some time, Carolina rose (shown here) and smooth rose are already knock-outs. 

Alumroot flowers are a quiet yellow-green. This species is typical of high quality prairies and savannas.
Its maple-shaped leaves are not visible here. The big leaves are prairie dock.

Here alumroot blooms in one of its favorite savanna haunts - a thicket along with dropseed grass, gray dogwood, hickory and grape. 

Again, the big leaves are prairie dock. The big spray of white pea flowers is white false indigo.
That little red oval toward the bottom left is a strawberry leaf that has turned, for some reason.
It's kind of fun that - when the chlorophyll goes, the leaf is colored like the fruit. 

Wild Quinine (bottom left) and White False Indigo
And a look at the landscape, with the messy trees savannas often have. 

Here the indigo is backed up by the big, lobed leaves of compass plant.

Now the blue spiderwort comes in, with indigo, compass, and a budding tuberous Indian plantain front right. 

Big old trees are worth a look.
This behemoth has a history. Perhaps in revery you can plum it. 

Diversity of leaves and just a few flowers. In bloom: black-eyed Susan, spiderwort, and a hint of downy phlox. Leaves: prairie dock, rosinweed, gayfeather, lead plant, bush clover, mule ear, dropseed, Indian grass, rattlesnake master, early goldenrod, wild quinine, and many more, if you look close.  

Carrion flower is "pollinated by deceit." The spherical flower heads smell like rotting meat, and flies come to lay eggs. Their feet pick up pollen, before they fly off to be fooled again. Here the tendrils of both carrion flower and purple vetch are twining around woodland sunflower and each other. Cosy. 

Gray dogwood puts out handsome and fragrant flowers for pollinators.
Indigo buntings, yellowthroats, and other birds nest in the savanna shrubs.

Short's sedge is distinctive for its dark fruits.

Daisies are common, in many senses. They are "aliens" - from Europe. I can't see that they do harm.
In the short run, they're pretty, and their roots help secure damaged turf.
As the ecosystem recovers its diversity, the daisies fade out. 

The two flowering alien weeds here are field hawkweed and red clover.
A friend says "don't get your undies in a bundle over a few weeds. These species do little harm."
Such plants are slowly decreasing as the conservative competition increases. 

Spreading Dogbane. Beautifully delicate. Hard for me to photograph their pink inner stripes. 

Philadelphia fleabane. A fine native weed. 

Here the gray dogwood is in a thicket with hedge bindweed and red and Hill's oaks.

This scene is special to me for its June grass (upper left center).
It's a locally rare species that doesn't bloom every year.
Here it's growing with black-eyed Susan, dropseed, fleabane, quinine, bastard toadflax, rattlesnake master, strawberry, purple prairie clover, prairie dock, and more.  

Most of the grasses that bloom this time of year are cool-season species like the Junegrass and Leiberg's panic grass. They're important to the ecosystem, but they don't make a lot of fuel - as will the big warm-season grasses that are just starting to rise. It's those grasses that burn out the non-fire-adapted trees (and will trim the lower limbs off many of the oaks as well). 

Veined Pea was apparently absent from Somme for more than three decades. We knew of no local sources of seed. Then we noticed a few leaves. We put a deer-exclusion cage over them, and within a few years this rare beauty was sprawling around with abandon. We looked more carefully. Found leaves in five places, all on abandoned fence rows. Protected them a bit with caging. Now they thrive.

Meadow Rue. Big, brawny, and delicate. 

Prairie sundrops has begun to open only in the last few days. A spreading, low plant of moist prairie. 

Here sundrops shows it can shine in partly shaded savanna with purple vetch, daisy, gray dogwood and two classic savanna specialists: in the middle are the leaves of cream gentian, which won't bloom until fall. The wide leaves with a purple tinge at the bottom right are purple milkweed, some of which is starting to bloom now. 

The restored openness of the bur oak woodland.
Somme Prairie Grove was one of the first places where this ancient, nearly forgotten community began to be revived. 

A patch of orchard grass - a European species planted long ago by dairy farmers - stands between the trail and a bur oak. The natural woodland and savanna flora is gradually replacing such cultivated grasses. 

Pale Spike Lobelia. Looking insignificant next to the big daisy?
But to an ecologist the rare lobelia looks like a mighty symbol of success, part of ecosystem recovery. 

Downy phlox is special. But if you can zoom in on the left, you'll see something special-er.
Leiberg's panic grass has a little purple flower where each seed will form. This little grass is another indicator of quality. You won't find it many places. 

Wild Quinine (right) and Beardtongue (left) - over the purple vetch.

Close up of wild quinine. Note the black and gray beetles working it.
The insects are more varied and numerous than the flowers. How wonderful it would be one day to have a guide to their identification and fun ecology tidbits to post about the insects. 

The flora of the most open savanna areas has much in common with the prairie. Here for example are prairie phlox, prairie dock, prairie dropseed, lead plant, hard-leaved goldenrod (or its fine old name "mule ear") and other classic prairie species. But, if you can zoom in, and know your plants, you can also see such savanna indicators as carrion flower and re-sprouting oaks and dogwoods, kept low by regular fire.

Downy phlox and prairie phlox are two names for the same plant. It thrives across wet to dry savanna and prairie. 

Red bulrush is a quiet plant, but many people ask about it, because it lines the footpath in many areas.
No, we didn't plant it there. It comes by itself. 

Next is series of plants in the same family as the humble carrot - the Umbelliferae. Typically their flower heads are "umbels" - in which all the branches radiate from a one point. Some are edible. Some poisonous. Some common; some rare. Most have white or yellow flowers.

Cow Parsnip (white) rises over Golden Alexanders (yellow).
To me, "cow parsnip" is a poor name for so colossal a plant.
Latin name: Heracleum maximum: translates to something like "Hercules the Great."
Golden Alexanders may be the commonest plant in Somme's spring woodlands.

Sanicle or Black Snakeroot (Sanicula marilandica).
Another quiet flower - a rare plant that's a survivor from Somme's savanna past.
We rarely see it anywhere else, but it's common and happy here. 

Thicket Parsley.
Elegant, spare, delicate, rare.
Here it stands in the savanna over purple vetch and mountain mint. 

Another view of thicket parsley (Perideridia americana).
Grows in savannas or, as here, in open woodlands.
(But the leaves you see behind it are the coarser leaves of the Alexanders. We found the seed of thicket parsley only in the forest preserve across the street from the Riverside-Brookfield High School - exactly where Floyd Swink reported it surviving in his Plants of the Chicago Region. 

Another rare plant - meadow parsnip (Thaspium trifoliatum). This species was also remnant here when we started, another bit of savanna heritage. It looks much like golden Alexanders, but it is slighter, often has heart-shaped basal leaves, and its outermost leaflet often has a heart-shaped base as well. 

Yellow Pimpernel. 

Yarrow or Milfoil or Quaker Lace.
Formerly seen as alien, but Wilhelm and Rericha consider it native here.

And here finally is golden Alexanders itself. Most of them are now setting seed.
This one was a late bloomer. 

And now the last four photos.
Two-flowered Cynthia.
A glorious, uncommon flower, looking like a dandelion at first, but then emerging as gracefully special.

This species has three common names:
Wild Coffee. Tinker's Weed. Horse Gentian. 

A favorite shape and color, even though it's not a flower. A pillar of this ecosystem. The early leaves of young bur oaks can be wonderfully maroon-ish. Unlike in most "preserves" these days, bur oaks reproduce prolifically at Somme Prairie Grove, as they celebrate the sun and fire.

Thanks for joining in this walk of June 15th. 

Note to photographers:
We'd like your better photos to replace or add to these.
But please take them from the trail.
You may notice trampled trails to pretty flowers, smashing rare vegetation here and there...
... even though a great specimen of the same species stands beside the path a little further on.
Help us protect this rare site.
We hope you'll keep feet on the trail as much as possible.

Thanks for any trailside photos you might offer.
Thanks for sharing your appreciation of this precious place.
Thanks for proofing and edits to Kathy Garness.