Fall 1998

[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: FALL 1998.]

Joan Meersman: Collector of Seeds

By Andrea Friederici Ross

If it's Wednesday and it's fall, chances are Joan Meersman is off seed collecting. Meersman and her able troop of volunteers collect seeds from rare or important plants along the North Branch of the Chicago River for ultimate dispersal in appropriate forest preserve areas to restore precious remnants of native habitat in the region. It's all part of an imaginative partnership involving the Chicago Botanic Garden, Forest Preserve District of Cook County, and a volunteer group, the North Branch Restoration Project. Experts supply lists of needed seeds — such as dropseed grass, wood anemone, meadow rue, and toothwort — and Meersman's devoted group goes off in search of them. Early in the season, the volunteers work in the woods. As the season progresses, they spread out to the woods' edge, and finally into the prairie — following the ripening seed.

The seeds of some plants are trickier to find and collect than others. Wild geranium, for instance, has a trigger mechanism; its seeds literally explode off the plant when they're ripe. Meersman says they watch plants "week by week so we're sure to be there when they're ready." Or, if less confident they'll be in the right place at the right time, they have been known to ripen the seed in a paper bag, "just close the top and catch the seed!"

It's not all work. There are parties, too. Processing parties. Several times in the summer, and once in the fall, the volunteers assemble to help prepare the seeds for planting. Then the seeds are exchanged with other FPD volunteers for inclusion in the planting mixes. Meersman notes that the rest of the plant material — seed hulls, husks, grass stems, and branches — is returned to the forest preserve ecosystem, too. It's a neat process, and clearly a labor of love.

Meersman says there are always surprises — assorted insects, mammals, and birds that enliven the collecting trips. One time at Wayside Prairie in Morton Grove, she and another volunteer were looking for a particular plant when they noticed what looked like a large cocoon. As they edged closer, the "cocoon" revealed itself to be a little brown bat, which, frightened, flew away right over their heads. Another time, the volunteers flushed out three young woodcocks, which scampered out around their feet.

Meersman also helps coordinate a sort of foster parent program for seedlings. She obtains young plants, grown at the Botanic Garden from the rare seed she's collected, and distributes them among a list of volunteers who adopt the plants into their own yards. Ultimately, the volunteers harvest the seeds, return those to Meersman, and she incorporates them into the North Branch restoration seed mixes.

How did this remarkable woman, now 68 and grandmother of 17, learn all this? "I'm strictly a rank amateur who loves getting more knowledge," she explains. Meersman calls the outdoors her classroom, and credits various enthusiastic naturalists who took the time to teach her some of what they knew. Roughly 10 years ago, with no particular plant background of her own, she met Laurel Ross while on a bird walk at Chicago's North Park Village Nature Center. This led to volunteering at the Nature Center and to accompanying Ross (who then had the North Branch volunteer responsibilities Meersman has today) on seed collecting trips. In this way Meersman came to know native plants — learning them "backwards," as she says, first recognizing plants when they had already flowered and were in seed. When Ross was unable to continue the seed collecting due to professional commitments, Meersman took over.

Meersman notes that the seed collecting projects have sharpened her senses. She says that the more time she spends in the wild, the more she notices details she never would have seen before. An inspiration for all who want to get involved but are reluctant due to lack of technical knowledge, she enthuses, "you have got to just walk out, get in the middle of it, open your eyes, and you see marvelous things."