Life on the Rocks: The Story of Lakeside Daisy
Lakeside daisy’s (Tetraneuris herbacea) rocky road to recovery began in 1988 when it was listed as a federally threatened species. This designation was determined in part by the limited availability of suitable habitat, and the potential loss of that habitat as a result of stone quarrying operations in major parts of its range (namely Ohio).… Read more
Nature Notes
Saving Dune Willow
Dune willow (Salix syrticola) is an Illinois Endangered species found at only a few lakeshore sites in northeastern IL. David Johannesen, a Plants of Concern volunteer, raised an alert in 2020 when he discovered plants were being lost to lakeshore erosion, and flooding had submerged half of the 10 remaining dune willows at Illinois Beach… Read more
Nature Notes
Confusing rues: identifying false rue anemone and rue anemone
If you get Enemion biternatum and Thalictrum thalictroides mixed up, you’re not alone. It doesn’t help that their common names—false rue anemone and rue anemone—are so similar. Both spring ephemerals are in the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae). Both have typically white petaloid sepals and three-lobed leaves. Here are some differences in their appearance: E. biternatum has… Read more
Nature Notes
Plant Profiles: Thicket Forming Shrubs
-Henry “Weeds” Eilers When we think about our woodlands – what comes to mind? Perhaps the earliest wildflowers after a long cold winter or hunting for morels a bit later. And then there are large trees of course, such as oaks and hickories. We think less often of the understory, unless such iconic species as… Read more
Plant Profiles by Henry "Weeds" Eilers
Plant Profiles: Lindera Continued, Shrub Communities, and CO2
Henry “Weeds” Eilers After recent burns and while getting my exercise by cutting down and piling brush at the Shoal Creek Conservation Area, I checked the few plants of Spicebush that had survived that devastating 2012 drought. Though mostly small, 3’ or less, they all indicated considerable age by their sizable basal crowns. The largest… Read more
Plant Profiles by Henry "Weeds" Eilers
Plant Profiles: Spicebush (Lindera benzoin)
-Henry “Weeds” Eilers One of our chapter members in October suggested that I do a plant profile column for the INPS newsletter on this native shrub. It had been only a week ago that I was privileged to accompany Nathan Aaron, a skilled botanist who is working in the Meramec Hills section of the Missouri… Read more
Plant Profiles by Henry "Weeds" Eilers
Plants with Stomachs
Somewhere in a lake near you, in a shallow bay, grows a floating plant with pouchlike sacs on its leaflets. The sacs each have a “spring- loaded” trap door that can open and shut in a fraction of a second. The “triggers” are hairs, known as “trichomes” in plants, around the mouth of the sac.… Read more
Nature Notes
White snakeroot (Ageratina altissima)
Ageratina altissima, or white snakeroot, is the only species of its genus found in the Chicagoland region, but it is widespread, even weedy. (The more than 300 species in the genus Ageratina mainly occur in the warmer regions of the Americas and West Indies.) White snakeroot is an herbaceous perennial around 1.5-3’ tall with opposite,… Read more
Nature Notes
Hosah Park: A Hidden Jewel Under Threat
Four and a half years ago I ran into Ken Klick, restoration ecologist for Lake County Forest Preserves, at Illinois Beach State Park. Ken was headed up to do some rare plant monitoring at Hosah Park and invited me to join him. I had been to Hosah a few years before on a Habitat 2030… Read more
Nature Notes
Five years of Progress on Horn Prairie
I was just going through prairie photos, thinking about Henry Eilers and how far recognition of our Prairie has come over the past 5 years! As they say: “time flies when you are having fun!” It was mid to late December of 2014 when I received an email from one HENRY EILERS. I had no… Read more