A Very Prairie Cemetery

“The prairie landscape insists on patience and commitment. It does not give up its secrets and wonders easily.” — James P. Ronda

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It’s the end of the work day at home, and I’m scrolling through Twitter. Then I see it —a tweet by tallgrass artist Liz Anna Kozik about a local prairie awash in shooting star blooms. A prairie I’ve never seen before! It’s only 30 minutes from my home. Jeff looks over my shoulder and sees the photo Liz has posted. Wow! We look at each other.

Let’s go!

The 37-acre Vermont Cemetery Prairie is part of the Forest Preserve District of Will County. One acre of the pioneer cemetery is designated as an Illinois Nature Preserve. This acre, untouched by agricultural plows which destroyed most of Illinois’ original 22 million acres of tallgrass prairie, is a rare piece of our history.

The cemetery is home to the federally endangered  and state threatened Mead’s milkweed. Illinois has about two dozen native milkweeds, all of them host to the monarch butterfly caterpillar. I’ve seen many of these native milkweeds. But the Mead’s has been elusive. Maybe later this summer, I’ll see it here.

As we get out of the car, I’m disappointed. Prairie plants? Sure. The immediate area around the parking lot seems to be prairie wetland, and we spot some familiar species.

Birds are moving through. A killdeer. A mallard. Another mallard. And—what’s that?

Lesser yellowlegs? I think so. Tringa flavipes. For fun, I look up the meaning of its scientific name. I discover “Tringa” is “a genus of waders, containing the shanks and tattlers.”  Hilarious! The Latin name flavipes is pretty straightforward: flavus is “yellow” and pes means “foot.” I love the scientific names; they always have a story to tell about a member of the natural world. I check the lesser yellowlegs’ range in Cornell’s All About Birds; it seems they are stopping here on their way to their breeding grounds up north.

We watch the lesser yellowlegs move through the wetlands for a while, then continue looking for the cemetery.   Jeff spies it first—-the black fencing in the distance is a tip-off. The Tall Grass Greenway Trail runs parallel to the prairie, between the fence and railroad tracks, flanked by towering power lines.

A mammoth subdivision borders the other side of the preserve. House after house after house. But few people are at the prairie.

The fence, which keeps us out, is necessary, as the prairie would easily be damaged by vandalism or poaching. Remnants like this have almost vanished in Illinois; only about 2,300 high quality original prairie acres remain. Remaining prairie remnants tend to be along old railroad tracks, on rocky knobs unsuitable for farming (such as you find at Nachusa Grasslands in Franklin Grove, IL), or in cemeteries, such as these.

Jeff and I walk the perimeter. Outside the cemetery fence, even the ditch and buffer zones are a treasure trove of prairie plants. Golden Alexanders.

And its cousin, heart-leaved golden Alexanders.

Compass plants.

Wild strawberries.

Tall coreopsis.

Prairie dropseed.

All this on the outside of the fence! Magical. Could it really be any better inside?

We look in.

Wow.

So much shooting star. We see bumblebees among the graves, working the flowers in the early evening light.

Among the shooting star is wood betony…

..and so much hoary puccoon! These pops of orange are startling among the yellow of wood betony and the pink of shooting star. A few bastard toadflax throw white stars in the grasses.  Sedges are in bloom too! But what species?

I have no idea.

The health of this prairie is a tribute to long-time dedicated stewards Don and Espie Nelson. (Watch a video about their work on this prairie here.) Without the efforts of this dynamic duo, this prairie would not be the vibrant, diverse place we see today. It also owes its existence to Dr. Robert Betz, a professor at Northeastern Illinois University, who worked to restore this remnant in the 1960s through cutting brush and using prescribed fire. He’s one of our Illinois prairie heroes.

I wonder what those who were buried here would have thought about the importance we put on the prairie flora found here today. Curious, I look up Wilhelmine Grabe, whose name appears on a gravestone with her husband, John Grabe.  She was born in Germany, immigrated here, and died in 1895, at the same age as I am today. What did she think, when she came from the forests of Germany and first walked through a tallgrass prairie? Was she enchanted? Or was she afraid of the vast, empty spaces that became her new home? Did she and her husband, John, work hard to break the prairie sod so they could farm and grow food for their family? Would it puzzle her to see how much we value the last vestiges of prairie here?

I look up other names I see on the markers, but find nothing. There are many other gravestones worn beyond deciphering. All of these markers ask us to remember people who called the prairie state home for a portion of their lives. All of them are now at rest in one of the most beautiful cemeteries I’ve ever seen.

This prairie…these beautiful prairie wildflowers. This unexpected evening. This visit is a surprise that lifts my spirits and revives my sense of wonder.

The surprises have not all been good ones this week. My ginkgo tree, resilient and indestructible—-I thought — had leafed out. Then—wham! All of its leaves died this week.

Will it survive? I email the Morton Arboretum’s plant clinic, a free service the Morton Arboretum offers to anyone, anywhere. Sharon, a repository of expert plant knowledge,  diagnoses freeze damage. She says it’s possible my little tree will summon enough energy to put out a new set of leaves.

Or not.

All I can do, she said, is watch…and wait.

I’ve gotten more practiced at watching and waiting the past two months. No problem.

Another surprise:  Sunday evening, three and a half inches of rain fell in a few hours. The Arboretum is still closed because of the pandemic, so we drive to Leask Lane which borders the west side of the Schulenberg Prairie to see how the prairie has fared. There, we pull off the road to peer through the fence. Willoway Brook rampages wide and wild. As a steward, I know the seeds of invasive plants are coming in with this deluge, and will require attention as the waters subside.

It’s a challenge I anticipate. But it will be a few more weeks before the Morton Arboretum is open. Although my steward work won’t resume for a bit longer, I’ll be able to hike the Schulenberg Prairie again in less than two weeks.  At last. At last.

I’m anxious to see what the past two months have brought to the prairie. I look over the fence and wonder. Are the small white lady’s slipper orchids in bloom? This should be their week. I remember the delight of discovering them nestled deep in the new grasses.

It’s a discovery that has never lost its charm, year after year.

What about the shooting star? Will they be visible, even with the old growth, unburned, still in place? Try as I might, I can’t see them. But I remember them, from previous years.

I think of these years, and how beautiful the wildflowers were. I imagine the queen bumblebees, alighting on one bloom after another,  using their strong thoracic muscles—-performing “buzz pollination”—to loosen the pollen. Like salt sprinkled from a salt shaker.  One thought led to another. Had the federally endangered rusty patched bumblebee emerged? Was it out and about in the wildflowers?

I wonder if the first eastern forktail damselflies are emerging along Willoway Brook, and what effects the water’s rise and fall are having on the dragonfly and damselfly populations.

So much is happening! So much to anticipate. June 1, I’ll be back on the prairie I’ve grown to love for the past 22 years where I’ve been steward for almost a decade. Less than two weeks to go now. Until then, I peer through the fence.

It will be worth the wait.

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James P. Ronda, whose quote kicks off the blog today, is the author of Visions of the Tallgrass from University of Oklahoma Press. If you haven’t seen this book of lovely essays with gorgeous photographs by Harvey Payne, check it out here.

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All photographs taken at Vermont Cemetery Prairie, Forest Preserve District of Will County, Naperville, IL unless otherwise noted; copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): sign; view of the wetlands; lesser yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes); approach to cemetery remnant; approach to cemetery remnant; golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea); heart-leaved golden Alexanders (Zizia aptera); compass plant (Silphium laciniatum); wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana); tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris); prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis); cemetery fence; shooting star and gravestone (Dodecatheon meadia); shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia); shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia) and gravestone; wood betony (Pedicularis canadensis), hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens) and bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata); prairie and power lines; ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba), author’s front yard, Glen Ellyn, IL; compass plant (Silphium laciniatum); Willoway Brook, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; small white lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium candidum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL–photo from previous years; shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL–photo from previous years; shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia); eastern forktail (Ishnura verticalis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Tremendous thanks to Liz Anna Kozik  for the heads up about Vermont Cemetery Prairie. Check out her tallgrass prairie graphic comics and other art here.

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Join Cindy for a class online!

“Tallgrass Prairie Ecology” class online in May through The Morton Arboretum is SOLD OUT.   Sign up now to ensure a spot in our June 7 class here.

Nature Journaling is online Monday, June 1 — 11am-12:30pm through The Morton Arboretum:
Explore how writing can lead you to gratitude and reflection and deepen connections to yourself and the natural world. In this workshop, you will discover the benefits of writing in a daily journal, get tips for developing the habit of writing, and try out simple prompts to get you on your way. (WELL095) — Register here.

Coming in June! Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History. Pre-order now from your favorite indie bookstore, or online at bookshop.org and other book venues.

Want more prairie while you are sheltering in place? Follow Cindy on Facebook, Twitter (@phrelanzer) and Instagram (@phrelanzer). Or enjoy some virtual trips to the prairie through reading Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit and The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction.

The Prairie Conservation Cradle

“Unique in the world, the University of Wisconsin Arboretum is the birthplace of a practice called restoration ecology. ” –Liz Anna Kozik

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When I was a bookseller, I had a t-shirt that read “So many books. So little time.” Today, as a prairie steward, I need a shirt like this—-only with “prairies” instead of the word “books.”

With this in mind, I visited University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Arboretum over the weekend with an agenda: Curtis and Greene Prairies. One day to hike the two and discover their treasures. One day—and I knew it wouldn’t be enough.

I check the closed Visitor Center to see their business hours. Open at 9 am. Barn swallows have plastered two nests over the Visitor Center doors, and the moms and dads aren’t especially happy to see me.

They line their nests with grass. How appropriate! It’s only 7:30 am, so I have plenty of time to hike before the bookstore opens. I wander through the visitor center prairie display gardens, which have some lovely plants I’ve struggled to replicate back in Illinois. Hello, prairie smoke!

We’ve lost this iconic plant on the Schulenberg Prairie where I’m a steward, and I’ve been looking for local seed sources to jump start it again. So far, no luck.

Prairie smoke has also disappeared in my backyard prairie planting. I wonder. Did I burn my prairie patch too early one year? Or is it just too wet? I’m not sure why I lost it. All I know is I want it again. Pure prairie plant envy.

The Visitor Center overlooks the 73-acre Curtis Prairie, known as the oldest prairie restoration in the world, established in 1935.  I’ve visited the Curtis Prairie before, but only in winter.  Today, it’s already warm, and there’s not a cloud in the sky.  Spiderwebs encrusted with condensation are thrown across the wildflowers, and sparks of light glint from every grass blade.

Dew-covered wild geraniums send up their signature seed pods along the shadier edges of the trails. You can see why this plant’s nickname is “cranesbill.”

Cream wild indigo sprawls across a grassy incline in the sunshine.

Shooting star is in differing stages of bud, bloom, and seed. I relish the transitions.

Except for the occasional jogger out for a morning run, there’s plenty of solitude. But the prairie is busy with the zip and whir of wings. A red-winged blackbird calls, then a black saddlebag dragonfly zooms by. Song sparrows tune up. Green frogs strum their broken banjo strings, calling nearby.

I hike through the puddles, and then through a wall of willows on one side of the prairie trail following the frog calls. On the other side of the willows is a small pond.

Worth investigating. Squish. Squish. Squish. My boots sink into the muck with each step through the willows. I glass the water with my binoculars and….there! A muskrat cuts through the pond, then dives.

Not far away, a turtle sticks its head out of the water, soaking up sun. It’s a veritable “Where’s Waldo”  to see it in the algae. Good camouflage.

I could spend the rest of the morning here, seeing what shows up, but the slant of my shadow tells me it’s time to get going.  A moth flies out of the grasses, close to the edge of the trees. Later, back home, I consult my Peterson’s Guide to make the ID. A fan-footed moth! Such subtle coloration. I’m not sure what exact species, but I’m learning.

The morning has slipped away. Returning to the parking lot, I stumble across…an egg? What in the world? At first, I think someone has dropped their breakfast. Then, I remember the large birds I saw here on my winter hike. Turkeys!

The Arboretum’s bookstore is open now. I ransack it for prairie books, then take the titles to a local coffee shop and ply myself with caffeine as I flip through them. Books on nature. Prairie ID guides. A children’s book on bees for the grandkids. Ballasted by books and jazzed by the java, I pull out my map and prepare to tackle my second goal: Greene Prairie, the second-oldest prairie restoration in the world.

I make the mistake of driving to it. After several misses, back and forth across “the Beltline” highway which splits the Arboretum in two, I finally find a tiny parking lot piled with gravel. There’s a small opening in a fence. Success! Later, I learn I could have hiked here under the Beltline from the Curtis Prairie. Next time.

It’s cool and quiet. Not another soul on the trail. Plenty of poison ivy. I’m glad I wore my knee-high rubber wading boots. Gnats swarm around my face, and I’m grateful for my headnet. My boots sink into the sandy trails, rutted  with rainwater.

So beautiful.

The woods open up to sunshine on sandy knolls, covered in wildflowers. Balsam ragwort splashes gold on both sides of the trail, with fluffy field pussytoes mixed in, going to seed.

And then, there’s the lupine. Wow.

I admire the blue-purple spikes, something we don’t have on the Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum where I’m a steward, only a few hours drive south. Amazing how a relatively short distance can result in such different species! Different soil types. Different prairies.

Around a curve, over a rise —and there! Hoary puccoon. We have a few straggly plants on the Schulenberg Prairie, but nothing like this profusion of golden blooms. So this is what hoary puccoon looks like when it’s in its happy place, I think. (I later discover this is hairy puccoon, which helps explain the difference!)

And suddenly, I see it. Greene Prairie.

 

Yes! It’s been on my bucket list for a long time.

But what’s this? A sign! No Hiking. Trail Closed.  Oh no! I stand in front of the sign for a bit, considering.  Too much rain? Too much mud—too damaging to the prairie to hike it.  I hike around the prairie, looking for the next interior trail. Same signs here. Plus an  interpretive sign.

Interesting information. Context. Guidance for hikers like me, hoping to learn about an unknown place. A place I’m not going to explore in the way I’d hoped today.

Looking longingly into the larger prairie area—and reluctantly deciding to be good and not hike it anyway—I take the open trail that skims the edges of the tallgrass. It opens up occasionally to give me vistas of what I won’t be able to hike through. What a tease! These glimpses will have to serve. I’ll hope for drier weather on my next trip. And I vow the “next trip” will be soon.

As I move away from the interior prairie trails, my first reward for being a rule-follower today is… wild turkeys. A group of three move across the path, hustling a bit as I approach. There’s a ruffle of feathers; a show of wings…

…a bit of turkey posturing. Cheered, I continue onward.

The second reward is a dragonfly. The 12-spotted skimmer is a common Odonate, but no less beautiful for its ubiquity.

We both bask in the sunshine as I stop and admire it for a while.  I realize the day-long hiking adventure has worn me out, and I’m at the furthest point from my car possible. It’s nice to have an excuse to rest.

Something becomes familiar to me only after a long relationship with a place. These common things  I’ve seen today—12-spotted skimmer dragonflies, hoary puccoon and prairie smoke—are touchstones when I explore places with a community I don’t know much about. Like these beautiful Wisconsin prairie restorations. My relationship with these prairies is still new, and I’ve got a lot to learn from them.

I think of the juxtaposition between the common and the rare, the familiar and the unfamiliar as I begin the hike back to the car through the lovely Southwest Grady Oak Savanna. The past—Greene and Curtis Prairies. They became a foundation for the future—the work that we do to protect and restore prairie today.  What can I learn from the past? How does it inform the future?

 

There’s so much to see here. So much to understand and pay attention to. It’s tough to leave.

But I’ll be back.

*****

The opening quote is from Liz Anna Kozik, Stories of the Land: Critters, Plants and People of Ecological Restoration, which was written and illustrated for her masters of fine arts degree in design studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. See some of Liz’s fine arts work in prairie restoration comics, textiles, and words here.

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All photos copyright Cindy Crosby from University of Wisconsin Arboretum, Madison, WI: (top to bottom) welcome sign; barn swallow (Hirundo rustica), Visitor Center Display Gardens; prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), Visitor Center Display Gardens; prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), Visitor Center Display Gardens; wild geranium (Geranium maculatum), Curtis Prairie; cream wild indigo (Baptisia bracteata), Curtis Prairie; shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia), Curtis Prairie;  trail through Curtis Prairie with willow wall; Curtis Prairie Pond; muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), Curtis Prairie Pond; turtle (possibly Chrysemys picta), Curtis Prairie Pond; fan-footed moth (species uncertain), Curtis Prairie; turkey  (Meleagris gallopavo) egg, Curtis Prairie; entrance to Grady Tract/Greene Prairie; trail to Greene Prairie through the savanna; pussy toes (Antennaria neglecta), Green Prairie Grady Tract; wild lupine (Lupinus perennis), Green Prairie Grady Tract; hairy puccoon (Lithospermum caroliniense), Green Prairie Grady Tract; view of Greene Prairie; Green Prairie interpretive sign; wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo);  12-spotted skimmer dragonfly (Libellula pulchella), Greene Prairie-Grady Tract; bench on the hike to Greene Prairie; shadows on the Curtis Prairie trail; large-flowered beardtongue (Penstemon grandiflorus), Visitor Center display gardens.

Cindy’s Speaking and Classes in June:

Friday, June 14 — Dragonfly and Damselfly ID at The Morton Arboretum, 8-11:30 am (Sold Out)

Thursday, June 20 — The Tallgrass Prairie: Grocery Story, Apothecary, and Love Charm Shop, 7-9 p.m., Rock Valley Wild Ones, Rock Valley Community College with book signing. More information here. Free and open to the public!

Wednesday, June 26: Tallgrass Prairie Ecology Online through The Morton Arboretum. Register here, and complete the course at your own pace over 60 days.

Just added! Friday, June 28—Dragonfly and Damselfly ID at The Morton Arboretum, 8-11:30 a.m. Register here.

See more at http://www.cindycrosby.com