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…
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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…
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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.…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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My formal resolution for 2017 was typical – lose ten pounds. It was with that goal in mind that I went out every day over the holidays; it helped that the weather was not very harsh. It was only in late January that the idea of entering at least one observation on iNaturalist every day…
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Plant Profiles: Sedges€¦ more specifically genus Carex – Our editor, Alana had suggested this topic. So have others in the past while stewing over species identification.