natural chicago
Prairie Life
Flourishes in September by Sheryl DeVore
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Photo by Steven D. Bailey
tepping into a prairie in September overwhelms the senses as vibrant purple and yellow blooms sway in the wind and bees buzz gathering pollen amid the final days of summer’s heat and humidity. “Goldenrod and New England asters are so bright and rich at this time of year,” says Veronica Hinke, public affairs officer and public services team leader at the USDA Forest Service Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie (usda.gov/midewin), in Wilmington. “This is the time of year when cheery yellows of goldenrods and deep purples of asters and bottle gentian come together, and the prairie is vibrant with complementary colors.” She notes, “Even the grasses provide new color this time of year. You can see fields covered in hazes of browns and yellows, and if you look closely, you might even see the bottle gentian blooming.” Bottle gentian is one of several species that produce purple blooms in high-quality prairies. Before European settlement, the prairies, a blend of short and tall grasses, along with forbs that bloom spring through fall, covered 60 per cent of present-day Illinois. Bison herds once roamed there. Approximately 2,300 acres of high-quality remnant prairie is left in the state, according to the Illinois Natural History Survey. “A remnant is simply prairie that is untouched by the plow or by construction and developPhoto by Michelle Pearion
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Chicago
NAChicago.com
ment,” explains Cindy Crosby, author of The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction. Both the 20,000-acre Midewin and the 3,600-acre Nachusa Grasslands (NachusaGrasslands.org), near Franklin Grove, harbor remnant prairies as well as woods, wetlands and restored prairies maintained to approximate how they looked before they were settled. Other small parcels of untouched prairie include the Berkeley Prairie Forest Preserve, in Highland Park, James Woodworth Prairie, in Glenview, and Wolf Road Prairie, in Westchester—all open to the public. A native prairie remnant was discovered on Metropolitan Water Reclamation District property in Hanover Park, although this parcel is not open to the public. Volunteers and staff at Midewin, Nachusa and many other natural areas in the state are constructing prairies where they did not exist before or returning disturbed land back to the prairie it once was. Two examples are the Schulenberg Prairie at Morton Arboretum (MortonArb.org/science-conservation/restoration/ projects/schulenberg-prairie) and Fermi Lab LEFT: Bottle gentian bloom in September at high-quality prairies such as Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, in Wilmington.
