plants

Marian R. Byrnes Park, IL • May 2025

| aea

This place is a unique kind of urban restoration. Van Vlissingen Park has been owned by the Chicago Park District since 2011. When we first started visiting, it was an overgrown, impenetrable, Phragmites-filled mess, like many public lands around Chicago in the 80s through early 2000s.

And the restoration isn’t back to some pre-colonial time; this is no remnant habitat here. It’s a spontaneous ecosystem that moved in on a bed of slag and construction waste. Some of the waste continues to erupt from layers of soil; bricks and building materials form vignettes highlighting the ever present human input into these urban ecosystems.

Now that it’s Marian R. Byrnes Natural Area, it’s a beautiful slag prairie and wetland, with a luxurious woodland path.

Alisma inflorescences from last year, and new vegetative growth

an honor for another explorer of underappreciated ecosystems to make his mark here!
with the water level down across the site, you can see balled up Nostoc, slowly dehydrating

slag to the left, woodland path to the right!
a now-classic image of a high quality slag prairie!

Powderhorn, Chicago IL • April 2025

| aea

Powderhorn encompasses a vast tract of land, owned and managed by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, on the far southeast side of Chicago. It’s a stocked lake with fishers all year round, an award-winning remnant dune and swale habitat,

a to-be-acquired industrial lot with rail tankers, a railroad track lined with Phragmites, and disused land in a residential district made into an urban sponge that captures rainwater and drains it in to the lake. Altogether, it makes a really nice urban greenspace

that works with the land and hydrology and habitats, and enhances what they already are (minus some invasive species and plus some light mowing). Check out this terrific Storymap about the most recent restoration project!

…

…

We saw lots of evidence of beavers!

and other wildlife — like this osprey on a nest on a human-constructed osprey tower!

Burnham Prairie, IL • April 2024

| aea

We came up through the south end of Burnham Prairie, over several sets of railroad tracks. There was no parking lot; it just seemed like a close spot based on Google Maps.

We found a recent burn by Com Ed,

and skirted the wetlands of the Illinois State Nature Preserve.

We turned back and drove up to the north end of Burnham Prairie, well-hidden in the furthest reaches of residential Burnham, abutting the Grand Calumet River.

As we approached the slag prairie I realized I’d forgotten how much like Mars this slag is: everything is very stunted (very clear in cottonwoods); spotted knapweed is a champ and brings all the pollinators to the yard; there are a few Liatris, lots of whorled milkweed, some sumac; mosses making the barrens less barren.

Check out another visit to the same site a few years ago: Burnham Prairie, IL • March 2016

Sand Ridge, Calumet City, IL • April 2023

| aea

It’s that time of year again – spring ephemerals at Sand Ridge. They never get old.

upland woodland friends, sprouting from under the oak leaves.

here’s the hummocks that enable the fen orchid

this little wetland is on sandy soil in a swale among the aspens.

a younger grove is undergoing restoration and in a decade or so, may harbor high quality orchids and sedges like this one.

Bairstow Trailhead, IN • July 2022

| aea

In the great slag reconnaissance of 2022, we finally visited a whole host of sites from the slag map for use in botanical surveys next year. This looks like a spot that has the usual suspects, and some new friends, like the woolly plantain (Plantago patagonica) – a species I haven’t noticed on slag before!