Julie's Summer Report

Julie presented a summer summary at yesterday's ELM meeting.  Here's a synopsis & her beautiful photos!  While she's off to other adventures, including resuming her studies at DePaul, we're hoping to welcome her back next year to more prairie collecting & stewardship.  Thanks for all of your hard work, Julie!

- We collected 90 species from the prairie, woods, and wetland areas. These include everything from our more common species to rare and prized species. Most notably, I collected seed from Turks cap lily and the prairie lily that we pollinated and marked earlier this summer. Of the 100-plus flowering plants we counted of the Turks cap, only 17 had valuable seed pods, an inevitable loss due mostly to deer browsing.

carva laciniosa, kingnut hickory

- I began working on a new plant map to illustrate and provide information, including the GPS locations of plants that we gathered throughout the summer. The map will include a picture and a link to an informative website. So far, this map includes mostly the locations of the lilies, along with 10 other species.

alisma subcordatum, water plantain

 

- Bob Lootens and I attended the Batavia League of Women Voter’s annual volunteer fair at Batavia Library in September. It was a very successful event in general, made up of dozens of volunteer organizations from the area and many interested citizens looking to donate their time. We were one of the only environmental organizations there, and most people were very intrigued by what we do and surprised by our existence. We signed up about 10 new volunteers, and handed out a number of FNA and prairie brochures, as well as numerous Harvest fliers.

lilim philadelphicum, prairie lily

- Lastly, we diligently marked collection sites for the harvest in the Main Ring, with color coded tape and plenty of mowed paths to make it simple for our volunteers.