Illinois Calcareous Hill Prairies

[Hoy]

We have spiders here but no mantises! No chipmunks either. Interesting animals.

[cohan]

No mantises or chipmunks here either!

James, interesting place and history!
I wonder if anyone has a clear idea of what was growing where I live before European settlers came- more recently than your area-mostly early 1900's in my area.. We are in a zone where foothills, northern boreal and prairie biomes meet- untouched land will mostly go to boreal mixed-woods, but the natives apparently used to burn the forest away to bring the grassland grazing animals in (don't know how often or thoroughly), so I have no idea how much forest existed in those times, or what balance of forbs/grasses etc was encouraged (I don't think we have any fire adapted woody species in my immediate area; our native grasses are mid height, not the tall grasses of the east, nor the short grass farther south).
Now mixed farming (everything from fully cultivated fields-dead zones! to half and fully natural pasture areas and -currently- untouched woodlands) and clearing of roadsides maintains a greater diversity of habitat than would exist if the area were allowed to fully re-forest.
Not without a cost though- a lot of agricultural weeds were introduced by farming, and spread on the hooves and in the droppings of farm animals, so that they occur even quite distant from cultivated fields.. and spraying programs target any plant not specifically desired as fodder-luckily these are not that universal in my immediate area, where agriculture is often not that intensive, at least not over any sizable area..

[Kelaidis]

The Gentiana pulverulenta is gorgeous! This has been on my bucket list for years. Amazing that no nursery I know of has ever grown it (gentians are tricky but not impossible). I wonder if the Spiranthes is cernua or magnicamporum?

Beautiful ecosystems,

Thanks fo r posting...