Fall 1998

Bittersweet
Photos at Somme Prairie Nature Preserve and Gensburg Markham Prairie in Northbrook and Markham, Illinois. Words by Stephen Packard.

The lush prairie in this picture tells a bittersweet story. Yes, it's beautiful. Yes, indeed, it is recognizable as one of the finest prairie remnants east of the Mississippi. But this shot also shows a struggle.

First notice the species. That's easiest. Rattlesnake master with its white spheres, gayfeather or blazingstar in violet-purple spikes, the elephant-ear leaves of prairie dock. A hundred species of rare plants here tell us that this is a remnant of the ancient prairie that once covered 90 percent of Cook County.

Next notice the brush. Gray dogwood, a native plant, is a fine thing in and of itself. Yet its advance threatens to destroy an ancient balance. If the trend continues, the prairie dies. If the brush progressively spreads, as it will, and if the prairie fire doesn't burn the brush edge back, then the froghoppers, hairstreak butterflies, lilies, meadow voles, and a thousand other grassland species gradually die out. Without habitat, they die.

The lush foreground vegetation tells us this prairie is freshly fired, but the edge of the shrubs isn't burned back. We see lush herbs, but we don't see dead, burned sticks. The fire wasn't hot enough. For millennia, the prairies and the shrubby edges of oak woods survived side by side in a delicate balance. The lack of this balance is the potential tragedy that spices the bittersweetness here. If modern fires are prescribed only for the very wettest, coolest days, when just the dense grass and none of the shrubby edges burn, then inexorably the shrubs will advance and obliterate. Only as we learn to recognize and restore the fire-mediated balance will the ancient heritage once again thrive among us.