Fall 2003

Woodland galleries are laced together by a channeled stream... impressive wet mesic prairie, upland forest, and northern flatwoods

Lake County, Illinois

A walk through the adjoining Florsheim and North Park Nature Preserves in Lincolnshire is a tutorial in the "architecture" of the Midwestern savanna. Passing through a screen of scattered trees at the entrance to Florsheim, visitors enter a bright and expansive hall of wet prairie.

Along its far edges, a stand of oaks and invasive buckthorn partitions off a string of woodland galleries laced together by a channeled stream. Heading north along the path into North Park Nature Preserve, the land rises and falls, and the canopy of oak leaves throws varied pockets of dappled light on the savanna floor. Each bend in the path opens up a new room with a distinct green carpet of wildflowers.

Little more than a decade ago, Sarabel and Harold Florsheim donated 40 acres of land to the Village of Lincolnshire for a park. The land might have become playing fields. But a plant survey prior to the conversion of the land revealed a diverse, high-quality plant community of more than 240 species across seven distinct ecological zones, with particularly impressive wet mesic prairie, upland forest, and northern flatwoods. The survey swayed the village board, which voted to preserve the remnant wildland.

In the wet lowlands at Florsheim, marsh speedwell, threatened in Illinois, grows amid 13 species of sedge. Even the federally threatened eastern prairie fringed orchid blossoms in the rejuvenating prairie, thanks in part to citizen support of deer culling at the preserve (CW, Fall 2000 and Winter 2001). Several bluebird pairs have built nests in boxes constructed for them, as well as in the snags around a small pond near the prairie. Goldfinches and eastern kingbirds also frequent the open space, and Gerry Batsford, volunteer steward for both preserves, has seen families of coyotes hunting rabbits here.

The village added the 62.5-acre North Park site in 1999 after voters approved its purchase in a referendum. Planners divided the new acreage between recreation uses (to replace the playing fields originally envisioned at Florsheim) and a preserve of 38 acres. Many of the same rare plants found at Florsheim also inhabit North Park, including the state-threatened dog violet, which grows in scattered spots throughout the two preserves.

Two bands of water pass through the preserves — one the narrow Chicago River, channelled by farmers, on the north and east at North Park, and the other a strip of wet woods that runs beside Long Pond and an ephemeral stream. According to Lydia Scott, assistant director of public works for the Village of Lincolnshire, the natural headwaters of the West Fork of the Chicago River's North Branch almost certainly originated in the wet woods at North Park before farmers channeled the river. Now, however, the West Fork begins as a detention pond across Everett Road to the north. The village hopes to acquire a 25-acre parcel of riverine woodland south of Florsheim where the ephemeral stream joins the channel.

The seasonal wetlands in the two preserves provide habitat for a range of water-tolerant species. Swamp white oaks thrive on the cycle of wet and dry in the low areas at North Park, shading expanses of trillium. Blue-spotted salamanders depend on the ephemeral ponds to breed, their larvae maturing to air-breathing adults before the ponds dry in the summer. Visitors may note puckers of mud around holes dug by crayfish to find water under the drying surface.

White oak and shagbark hickory shelter the higher land along the channel at North Park, towering over patches of dog violet. Lydia Scott says native seeds have sprouted dramatically since a buckthorn clearing here last fall. "To see the sunlight flood in through the oaks...every week I go out there and find something new is coming up," she says. "Recently, we found Geranium bicknelli, a rare native geranium." There will surely be more surprises, since the twin preserves are still young.

Interpretive signs along the footpaths explain some of the ecology of the site, and there are restrooms and a picnic shelter just outside the preserve in the North Park recreation area, as well as a warming hut for cross-country skiers using the paths. To learn more about volunteering, call Lydia Scott at (847) 883-8600.

— Ryan Chew