Sea Lamprey Invasive Species (Petromyzon marinus)

DANGER!!!!!!!

Sea Lamprey is a highly invasive fish in the Great Lakes that has destroyed the native chub, lake trout, lake whitefish, herring, and other fish populations. It is originally from the Northern Atlantic Ocean, but through the building of canals through the Great Lakes, the Sea Lamprey has been introduced and has since become a huge problem. Sea Lampreys have exasperated other invasive problems in the Great Lakes such as the population explosions of the invasive alewives and gobies since the apex predators in the Great Lakes were wiped out. Sea Lampreys parasatize fish by laching onto their bodies and sucking their blood until the fish dies from being severely weakened or from infection. Invasive control is underway with lampricides, electric currents, barriers, and the killing of egg nests.

Burbot (Lota lota)

Burbot are very interesting and unique fish that look like a cross between an eel and catfish. A distinguishing feature is that they have only one barbel on their chin. The only fish that you can confuse it with is a bowfin, but bowfins have a contiguous dorsal fin while burbot do not. Burbot is an ancient fish that is the only one of its kind in its genus. There appears to have been more similar fish in its genus or family, but they seem to have gone extinct.

Burbot like to live in large cold rivers around the globe in the northern hemishphere. They also live in the Great Lakes, especially in Lake Erie.When young they eat small invertebraes such as copepods and cladocerans, and as adults they are piscivores eating other fish such as lampreys, trout, perch, suckers, etc.etc.

Black Crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus)

Black Crappie is a fish native to eastern North America. It is also seen in all of the other 48 mainland states of the U.S., but it is thought to originally live in the eastern states. Black crappies can be distinguished from white crappies (the only other crappie in the U.S.) by counting the dorsal fin rays and by noting the pattern on its body. Black crappies have 7-8 dorsal fin rays, and white crappies have 5-6 dorsal fina rays. The pattern on black crappies is a series of black dots all over the body including the fins, and white crappies have vertical stripes running along its body. Generally, black crappies are darker than white crappies, but not in all cases especially as seen above in this beautiful light clear specimen.

Common Reed (Phragmites australis) Winterized

DAAANGEER!!!!!!!!
This exotic invasive perrennial plant has been causing a HUUUUGGE problem all over the Midwest region of the United States. It likes to grow in moist areas, and is now adapting to drier soils unofrtunatley. I have heard that it is originally from wetlands in the Middle East especially in the country of Iran where it is ironically critically endangered. Supposedlely the exotic one form came from Europe which might be a subspecies like the one in the Middle East, it is up for serious debate. There also is a native common reed, but it has hybridized with the exotic one. Please beware of this plant, if you see it in a new area, please remove as soon as possible or it will overtake your space in a matter of a few years. It reprduces rapidly through fast growing tubers and roots, and it produces toxins in the soil that kills other plants.... this one is a serious threat...so ERADICATE once you see it!!

Ashburn Prairie, A Jewel in the City Winterized

Softstem Bulrush Winterized

Soft-stem Bulrush in a frozen pond in Marquette Park.

Soft spongy interior of the stem, hence, its name.

Longitudinal section of the spongy soft interior of stem.

Palm Sedge Winterized

Palm Sedge likes to grow along the edges of lakes and ponds as shown above in the frozen pond in Marquette Park, Chicago.

A dead give away for this plant is the tall height of this plant and its highly triangular stem. Triangular stems are characteristic of carex species as the one above (Carex muskingumensis).

The stem is sharply triangular and tough.

Can you guess?? Sawtooth Sunflower Winterized

Bottlebrush Grass Winterized

Th

Bottlebrush grass likes to grow in mesic semi-shade environments like savannas and open woodlands.

Beggar's Ticks Winterized

Beggar's ticks also commonly called by the scientific name bidens, is a plant that you have to watch out for if you don't want a whole bunch of sticky seeds on your clothes. That is where they got their common name beggar's ticks because they are like ticks/beggars that cling on to you.

Common Milkweed Winterized

Common milkweed can be distinguished from swamp milkweed by its larger and wider seed pods. The seed pods on swamp milkweed can be seen terminally on the plant as opposed to common milkweed where the seed pods can be seen all over the plant. Also to triple check, make sure that the milkweed is growing in a mesic area and not a wet area during the growing season. 

Pale-Spiked Lobelia (Lobelia spicata)

http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/prairie/plantx/ps_lobeliax.htm

 

Pale-Spiked Lobelia is a native short-lived perennial plant native to the eastern half of Canada and the United States. It is found in mesic prairies, opening of woodlands, and savannas. I have never seen it in my experience since it is not very common in disturbed areas, or even in remnant prairies. It is related to the more common and popular cardinal flower and great blue lobelia. The latter two are commonly used in home gardens, but pale-spiked lobelia not so much since the flowers are not as showy and smaller.It blooms in mid-summer which is earlier than cardinal flowers and about the same time as great-blue lobelias. The seeds of all lobelias are extremely small and easily carried by the wind. 

Lobelia spp. Winterized

Lo

Lobelias are very indistinguishable in the winter. Maybe someone who has more experience with lobelias in the winter would know, but they are very hard to tell them apart in the winter. The above plant can either be a cardinal flower, great blue lobelia, or even a pale-spiked lobelia.

Swamp Milkweed Winterized

Swamp Milkweed can be distinguished from Common Milkweed first by looking at its habitat, whether it is in a wet or dry area during the growing season, or by looking at the "husk" of the seedpod. The thinner seedpods are from swamp milkweed  and the thicker, larger husks are from common milkweed. Here, the husks are thinner and slightly smaller than common milkweeds. 

Hairy Vetch (Vicia villosa)

Hairy vetch is an exotic invasive plant from Eurasia. It likes to grow in mesic soils in abandoned fields and disturbed areas. It was introduced to the United States and other areas as a forage crop and in organic farms for nitrogen fixation and as a ground cover to keep other weeds out. It fixes as much as 200 lbs./acre of nitrogen into soils, but can overtake a field as a weed very quickly. In my own experience I have not seen it as problematic as Crown Vetch, and have only seen it a couple of times in abandoned fields. 

Prairie Blazing Star Winterized

Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis)

https://www.prairiemoon.com/Lupinus-perennis-Wild-Lupine.html

Wild Lupine is one of my all time favorite wildflowers. It is beyond elegant in its foliage and flowers. The leaves are palmate multi-foliate that are very showy and beautiful to look at. The flowers different shades of bright blue, but can sometimes be pink, magenta, or dark purple. It adds a distinct flare to a prairie, especially after a fiery prairie flare. They are one of the first plants to come up after a fire along with fireweed. 

Wild Lupine likes to grow in mesic to dry sandy soils. This prairie plant is highly endangered because habitat for this plant has been highly disturbed and destroyed. It is uncommonly seen along the eastern part of the United States and Canada. It is more common in Canada because less of its habitat has been impacted. A site where it is seen is in the United States is in the Indiana Dunes where it grows in sandy dry soil.

This plant is not confused with any other plant in the eastern United States and Canada because there are no other plants that come close to its resemblance. Even plants in its family Fabaceae are easily distinguishable from this plant.

This plant is highly important for the highly endangered Karner Blue Butterfly because it feeds exclusively on it. It is amazing how a gorgeous bright blue butterfly feeds solely on one of the most beautiful blue prairie plants.

http://animalcogz.blogspot.com/2012_10_07_archive.html

Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadense)

http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/fieldbio/medicinal_plants/pages/Canada_Goldenrod.htm

Canada Goldenrod is the most widespread Goldenrod in the United States. It is considered highly weedy and invasive. It can easily colonize a large disturbed area within a few years because its seeds can easily fly away to short and long distances in the wind. Canada Goldenrod likes to grow in almost any habitat except really shady or wet areas. If you see a large stand of it in a prairie or, really, A goldenrod in a prairie 9 out of 10 times it will be Canada Goldenrod. Although it is highly invasive, it can easily be taken out by hand pulling or aggressive mowing so that the seeds won't proliferate. A very effective method would also be to dump boiling water over large stands and it will die very quickly. Although the large stands of Canada Goldenrod are not very good environmentally, they are very beautiful to see and to walk through.

Canada Goldenrod Winterized

Canada Goldenrod, while being a native plant, it is considered an invasive species because it can easily colonize a large area of disturbed land. The seeds are easily carried away by wind to far distances and scatter easily. In many disturbed lands such as Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, there are thick stands of Canada Goldenrod and very few to nothing else in them. In my own opinion, I would rather see thick stands of Canada Goldenrod than say Canada Thistle or Queen Anne's Lace just because it is so much easier to take out and it is already one step ahead of the game being native.

Spring Time Iris

Are the iris' coming up already? Hopefully, because I want to see the prairie green and beautiful again. Iris' like to bloom in wetlands in the spring time, but their blooms are ephemeral. I'll come back here soon to check out how these guys are doing so that I don't miss their color extravaganza show.

Can you guess?? Winterized

Wild Quinine (Parthenium integrifolium) Winterized

Eastern Black Oak Winterized

Eastern Black Oak (Quercus velutina) is a tree native to Eastern North America that especially likes to reside in the southern part of Lake Michigan along sandy dunes and prairies.

Evil Queen of the Prairie Winterized

Wild Bergamot (Monarda Fistulosa) Winterized

Mountain Mint in Sundown Meadow

Queen Anne's Lace in Sundown Meadow

Rattlesnake Master in Sundown Meadow

Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)

http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=pontederia+cordata

 

A wetland plant that grows anywhere from North to South America. It has special stem tissue called aerenchyma used to carry oxygen to the roots of the plant since they have little access to oxygen in standing water. This plant is found in higher quality wetlands since it does not tolerate much disturbance and does not like the soil to dry out. It is found along the margins of ponds and lakes, swamps, bogs, and marshes. This plant can be confused with arrow arum and arrowhead when it is not in flower. It can be distinguished from the other two by having leaves that have a very fine venation pattern.

Prairie Crocus (Pulsatilla patens) (Anemone patens)

Prairie Crocus, also called pasque flower, is one of the earliest spring wildflowers to bloom. It blooms so early that the flowers come up before the leaves do. Prairie Crocus is a  perennial plant native to virtually all of the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere. It is seen in dry  prairies across United States, Canada, Europe, Russia, China, and Mongolia. Its flowers come in different colors such as blue, purple, and white. From my own experience, I have seen mostly purple blooms no taller than a few inches tall. Prairie Crocus is a rare wildflower and is an indicator of a virgin prairie or high quality prairie.

Arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia)

http://minneflora.com/classify/Alismataceae/Sagittaria/latifolia.html

Arrowhead is a perennial emergent aquatic plant native to North America. It is can be common in shallow wetlands even in polluted and degraded wetlands. Its can be seen in virtually in any kind of wetland, but it does not tolerate heavily shaded wetlands or it is not usually seen in fens. It is in the Alismataceae family or the Water Plantain family. I have in my own experience seen a lot of this in Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie and in other wetlands in the Cook County Forest Preserves near Chicago. It looks very much like arrow arum, but the leaves have palmate venation and the flowers are three-petaled and on a raceme as opposed to pinnate venation and a having a flower composed of a spathe and spadix.

Arrow Arum (Peltandra virginica)

http://fm1.fieldmuseum.org/keystonature/araceae/araceae3.html

Arrow Arum is a perennial wetland plant native to eastern North America. It is found in shady swamps, shallow slow moving rivers, edges of ponds and lakes, and other depressions. Arrow Arum is in the Araceae family which includes plants with unique flowers. The flower consists of a spathe and spadix. The spathe is the little hood that you see in the above photo, and the spadix is the long tubular part inside of the spathe. Other common plants in this family are water arum, skunk cabbage, and jack in the pulpit. The look alike plant arrowhead can be distinguished by having palmate venation as opposed to pinnate venation seen in arrow arum. In arrow arum there are three wide veins in the leaf as opposed to arrowhead which has many. Also, the flowers are completely different because arrow arum has a flower with a spathe and spadix and arrowhead has a long stem of small three-petaled white flowers

Multiflora Rose (Rosa mutiflora)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_multiflora

DANGER!!!!! Mutiflora Rose is a highly invasive exotic plant that grows in many different habitats. It is originally from Eastern Asia, but has become VERY invasive in eastern North America. It is found in degraded prairies and woodlands, and basically everything between. This is why this rose is such a problem because it very tolerant of almost all growing conditions and the roots are highly aggressive. I have not seen this rose growing in wetlands, so maybe that is the only place where it does not infiltrate. This rose can be distinguished from other roses from its small individual white flowers. It has many more individual flowers than most roses because they are small. Multiflora Rose also has comb-like hairs on each leaf stem as opposed to the native roses. The seed pod is also smaller than most native roses, and many more of them. The growing behavior of this rose is either sprawling or growing upright to several feet high in optimal conditions.

Pasture Rose (Rosa carolina)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_carolina

 

Pasture Rose is perennial woody plant native to eastern North America. It is found in prairies, openings in woodlands, oak savannas, limestone glades, and sand dunes near bodies of water. Pasture Rose can be locally common especially in abandoned fields, along railroads, fence rows, and other waste areas. It like mesic conditions, but can tolerate some moisture. The flowers look like Swamp Rose, but it lacks red styles in the center of the flower. Also, pasture rose would not be found in wetlands, the thorns are not curved, and is not even close as tall as how Swamp Rose can get. Pasture Rose can often times be seen sprawling on the ground as that is how I have only seen it in my experience.

Swamp Rose (Rosa Palustris)

http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/wetland/plants/sw_rose.html

Swamp Rose is a wetland perennial rose native to North America. It is found in swamps, marshes, seeps, bogs, and other wetlands where there is sand, gravel, muck or peat with acidity in the soil. It is usually  not a common sight since swamp rose is an indicator of a high quality wetland. It is found also in prairie restoration sites where reintroductions of this plant have been made. Roses are hard to identify whether they are native or exotic, but swamp rose is really the only rose east of the Mississippi that can tolerate growing in wet soils to growing in standing water. It is also taller (3-8' tall) and more robust than many roses. Another way to distinguish this rose is that it has a red dot (red styles) in the center of the flower as opposed to yellow styles like most roses have.

Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)

http://youcaneatthis.tumblr.com/page/8

Eastern Skunk Cabbage is a perennial wetland woodland plant native to Canada and the United States. It is one of the earliest plants to come out in the springtime, or should I say, the wintertime, because it can come out as early as late February into March. Many times, this plant can come out through the ice and snow since this plant has the ability of thermogenesis. This plant produces heat from its rapid growth to melt off snow and ice. This plant is of interest because it sends its flowers out first instead of its leaves, and the unattractive flowers smell of skunk and carrion to attract the season's first pollinators.

Torrey's Rush (Juncus torreyi)

http://www.missouriplants.com/GSR/Juncus_torreyi_page.html

Torrey's Rush is a perennial rush growing widespread from southern Canada to northern Mexico and from the east to west coast. Torrey's rush is found in wetlands such as wet prairies, sedge meadows, ditches, along ponds and lakes. Torrey's rush like most rushes are grass-like, but are not true grasses. Rushes are in the Juncaceae family and grasses are in the Poaceae family. Torrey's rush is characterized by its round spiky seed heads that are closely held together. The plant itself is a maximum of 3-5 feet. 

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)

http://www.swissmountainleader.com/blog/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marsh marigold is a perennial wetland plant that likes to grow in moist prairies or woodlands. It is one of the earliest plants to produce leaves and to bloom in the springtime. It is especially noticeable with its large bright yellow flowers and shiny green leaves. It can be seen growing in moist soil or in standing water in ponds, lakes, wet prairies, moist woodlands, and ditches. This is one of my favorite plants because of its attractive appearance. This plant is toxic to many animals and that is why many keep away from it.

Giant Ironweed (Vernonia gigantea)

I believe this is giant ironweed, but I am not quite 100% sure. Ironweeds do inhabit moist soils in sedge meadows or wet prairies and can somewhat tolerate disturbance. They inhabit the same habitat with swamp milkweed which together make a beautiful purple-pink midsummer prairie.