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Fall
1997
Black
is Beautiful
Photograph taken at Somme Prairie Grove by Joseph Kayne
of Deerfield, Illinois. Words by Stephen Packard.
Photographer
Joseph Kayne thought this picture "just about told
the whole story of the oak woods."
But
wouldn't some people think the charred log ugly? And if
beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then are our perceptions
of beauty genetic, or is the appreciation of beauty learned?
Kayne found this scene in a Cook County forest preserve
— just after a prescribed burn in the spring of 1996.
"I saw a once-degraded woods coming back to life, all
in one square foot," he said.
Fifteen years ago the site had been so thick with buckthorn
that the soil was bare and eroding away. But a dozen years
of restoration, including five burns, had worked magic.
The bronzy leaves are scarlet oak. They hang on the trees
all winter, sheltering many birds on cold nights; the birds
return the favor by thoughtfully leaving fertilizer behind.
A few of these leaves had clung to branches only to drop
after the spring burn passed through.
The kinds of trees that grow here — oak, hickory, hazelnut,
plum — thrive best when their fallen limbs and leaves
burn from time to time. In fact, they thrive and reproduce
only in open habitats such as are maintained by occasional
fires.
The whirls of yellow are wood betony — a species found
mostly on the prairie these days, because the woods are
too dark. Unbeknownst to Kayne when he set his tripod here,
the seeds of these betonies were broadcast through these
woods by restoration workers starting 10 years ago. These
restored betonies are now part of the lives of the pollinators,
the herbivores, and the whole complex interaction of species
that make up the reviving ecosystem.
Some
of the now-rare species of rich woods reproduce best in
quality habitat. If you look closely just left of the log,
tiny cotyledons are sprouting. Might these be the cotyledons
of the savanna blazing star, or fire pink, or woodland puccoon?
Who knows what future nature has in mind for this square
foot?
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2008 Chicago Wilderness Magazine, Inc.
Revised .
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