Plants
of the Chicago Region "A profoundly influential and important
book" by
Lori Rotenberk
The
first edition of Plants of the Chicago Region must
have seemed arcane and dull to some who peeked inside its
covers. No pictures, no descriptions, just lists of plants
— in Latin. But by the third edition, the book was
widely acclaimed as one of the major sources of information
and inspiration for conservation and restoration in the
region.
It
began as a work of love, of "pure" science. Floyd
Swink loved to identify plants and loved to make lists.
The Morton Arboretum was one of those rare places where
a scholar could study and publish for the few who cared.
What those few found was a book the likes of which was unknown
for any other region on Earth. It consisted of a simple
alphabetical list of all plants growing wild in the region–trees,
grasses, everything.
After
each plant name was a secondary list of "associated
species"–those that grew near the species in question.
These Latin lists were to change from academic curiosities
to tools for conservation and restoration in later years
when the plight of our vanishing ecological communities
would be recognized. But, at first, they must have seemed
like just endless lists of obscure Latin.
Then
in the late 1970s and early 80s, conservationists began
to try to recognize "health" and "recoverability"
in ecosystems. The Illinois Natural Areas Inventory demonstrated
that nearly all of Illinois’ natural ecosystems were
gone. The surviving high quality examples added up to a
pathetic seven hundredths of one percent (.0007) of the
original. This pittance was too small to survive for the
long haul, so pretty soon forest preserve staff and volunteers
were scouring the countryside for more damaged but recoverable
remnants. They needed to know how to recognize them, and
what might be missing (and thus in need of restoration)
to restore the remnant to health. When Gerould Wilhelm joined
with Swink in 1979 to produce a third edition, identification
keys were added along with a system for comparing sites
according to their floristic "integrity" or conservation
importance. Soon "Swink and Wilhelm" became a
Bible, toted to many a meeting and over hill and dale in
search of nature.
The
process of writing the book was an adventure in itself.
I helped Floyd and Jerry with the fourth edition. The book’s
range maps for the species were based on county records,
and Floyd made lists for each county of likely new species
records to be found. Floyd chose the counties we’d
visit on a given day and highlighted the species we were
most likely to find in bloom. We drove from place to place,
hunting for areas where associates of the missing species
grew. When we found one, we collected a specimen for the
herbarium, and wrote down the associates. Two or three days
a week, throughout the growing season for two years, we’d
leave around eight in the morning and be home for Floyd’s
dinner by six. Floyd would drag the itineraries from his
"bottomless briefcase" — along with pencils,
bananas, books, binoculars, maps and all.
The
fourth edition emerged as 921 dense pages, all typed at
breakneck speed and without error by Floyd (though, if I
wasn’t there, nothing happened, because he never did
learn how to turn on the computer). We added 99 native species,
167 adventive species, and 2,750 county records to the region’s
flora.
One
of the most significant parts of the book is those lists
of associates. Some species have different associates whether
they’re found in a prairie, a fen, or an oak woods.
Certain species have four or five different sets of associates.
This is the kind of information needed to restore and track
the health of plant species in natural ecosystems. For this,
and for his boundless good humor, Floyd inspires us. He
is an elder in the community of conservation.
