Black Partridge Woods • April 2024

We’re so lucky to have Sand Ridge Nature Preserve close by – within short loops of the parking lot are exceptional flora and fauna of high quality habitats, all year round! but particularly lovely and easy-to-access spring ephemerals.

Further afield, in the southwest of Cook County, Black Partridge Woods (BPW) is well-known for its spring ephemerals, on floodplains and in ravine and on upland plateaus. We wanted to see what the early-mid season brought, having been there later in the year, when wild geraniums dominated the herbaceous layer.

Skunk cabbage had finished reproduction for the year already, and were furiously unfurling their leaves before the canopy leafed out.

Hepatica were in just a few spots at the base of trees,

and along with the thick straps of ramp leaves everywhere, there were also bloodroot, rue anemone, spring beauty, and Cardamine.

Just sitting in one spot, in the fresh air and fresh growth, even with the drone of the freeway close by, it was a serene and evocative experience – so much energy being collected by these young leaves, a real forest bath.

Burnham Prairie, IL • March 2024

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

Acme Steel Coke Plant, IL • November 2023

Coking is part of the steel-making process. So the “steel industry waste” with spontaneous vegetation at this Acme Steel site is not slag, like at most other sites on the Slag Map.

We found a snake friend taking advantage of the raking sunlight.

Check out another visit to the same site a few years ago: Indian Ridge Marsh and beyond, IL • November 2020

106th and Muskegon, IL • July 2023

the industrial corridor to the north belies a cottonwood glade atop concrete boulders, sunny meadows, blooms full of nectar for pollinators, a waterfront view, and carpets of moss.

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Sand Ridge, IL • April 2023

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.

South Central Wolf Lake, IL • January 2023

A boat launch at Wolf Lake and a hydrological connection to Powderhorn Lake are new initiatives by the Forest Preserves and State Park. The connection between these bodies of water is an important one in reconstituting the wetland complex that has characterized the Calumet Crescent in the last 10,000 years.

Looking south towards Powderhorn, this new naturalized channel was constructed in an empty, perennially flooded lot. This green infrastructure is beneficial to the surrounding human community (decreasing local flooding) and connecting the animal communities.

Walking north, a buckthorn protected path affords coverage for waterfowl hunters (remember there is a gun club close by and hunting is legal in William Powers) or coyotes, flanked by the transition zones between land and lake.

The real action though comes from the beavers. We’ve seen beaver dams around Powderhorn Lake in the past – I wonder if these beaver clans were already connected overland, or if the coming months will be first contact between the populations! I hope someone is using this behavioral, range, and host tree preference data to learn lots about these local ecosystem builders!

With no one else around, there was a liminal feeling to the masses of Phragmites topped with a cloudy gauze covering the winter afternoon sun.

Slag Cliffs/Vet’s Park, Chicago, IL • September 2022: revisiting an orchid hypothesis

Remember earlier this year when I mused on whether the slag depression with Phragmites and grasses west of the slag cliffs might foster a Spiranthes population? MY FRIENDS, IT DOES.

I parked across the railroad tracks and walked in near the hay bales. I audibly squealed when I saw the first orchid! Check out the video below where I get very excited and wax romantic about this little mesic slag landscape.

Bairstow Trailhead, IN • July 2022

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!

Slag Cliffs, Chicago, IL • March 2022

I’ve been eyeing this site for a few years, never confident to visit it the first time alone. Who knew what was behind the overgrown tree-line at the edge of the lot?

We went together and it turns out that in late winter, perennial plants are greening up and glowing among the dreary cottonwood leaves. It’s a well-used place with past attempts at structures and social gatherings strewn about. No one else was here today though.

There’s a giant slag heap, one of the few in the area (but also: Shroud site, some parts of the old USX site). Holmes and Kubbing (2022) find slag heaps with ecosystems in Pittsburgh; in the Calumet Crescent we mostly see slag-filled depressions with slag as ground-level substrate. Remember that the Calumet was a vast wetland complex, yielding pockets in the landscape that were convenient to fill with steel production byproducts (e.g. slag) and other industrial waste.

The slag pile, or slag cliffs, rose up out of the woods of neighborhood volunteer junk trees: Ailanthus, ash, elm, cottonwood, a few juniper. The heap had clearly been used as a raised railroad spur, a way to transport in and out whatever was made here. To the east, these woods spread out and made way for big openings that have been used for ATV trails and bike jumps.

From the top of the slag cliffs, turning to the west was a delightful area with real promise: an ecosystem that grew up on slag and has created its own islands of organic material. A light canopy of slag-stunted rugged trees poked through diverse grasses. It looked like a slag savanna that may potentially be comparable to the high quality slag complex we see at Big Marsh and Marian Byrnes Parks?

It’s winter now, but this seems like a mesic area that might be wet enough for orchids?! I’d expect Liatris, hopefully Spiranthes, some sedges and rushes. We’ll revisit at the end of summer.

–> Revisit of this site in September 2022: orchids!