Illinois Native Plant Society

Learning, learning

The past year has been exciting for me, botanically speaking, as I pushed myself outside my somewhat monotonous prairie restoration monitoring to explore more remnant areas, learning the more obscure Illinois flora in my free time. With the new Flora of the Chicago Region in hand, I documented over 1000 plant taxa in the state …

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#BringBackTheBees, Another Misguided Conservation Effort

Another example of a poorly-designed “wildflower” seed mix to entice the public to engage in conservation efforts with Cheerios’ #BringBackTheBees campaign (see previous post on DuneCraft’s “Native” Perennial Seed Bombs). Really, how hard is it to consult an ecologist or botanist for efforts like these? And what a lesson in providing both common and scientific names. It’s …

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A Big Year, Botanist Style

Known to all birders, a “big year” is a competition to spot the most bird species within a given area in one year. Competition areas can be as large as the entire world to as small as a city park, but the popular competitions are country-(e.g. ABA), state-, or county-wide. And so, why not a …

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