Plant of the Week

Pale beardtongue
Penstemon pallidus Small
other common names: woodland beardtongue
Penstemon: from Greek penta, meaning “five,” and stemon, meaning “stamen”
Pallidus: meaning “pale”
Snapdragon family: Scrophulariaceae

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

This Week in Iowa Nature

Attend the Loess Hills Prairie Seminar early this month and hike the Sylvan Runkel State Preserve to see outstanding vistas of the Loess Hills and adjacent Missouri River valley.

Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar

Plant of the Week

Large-flowered beardtongue
Penstemon grandiflorus Nutt.
other common names: shell-leaf penstemon, wild foxglove, Canterbury bells, showy beardtongue, pink beardtongue
Penstemon: from Greek, meaning “five stamens”
Grandiflorus: meaning “large-flowered”
Snapdragon family: Scrophulariaceae

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

An Interview with Jean C. Prior & James Sandrock: Part 3

What advice would you give to beginning naturalists?
Jean: Explore patches of nature around your neighborhood or farm that catch your eye. Watch and listen for the birds, animals, and insects that live there or come to feed and drink there. Keep a journal of what you observe or hear over a week’s time or during a season. Find a friend or a group of people interested in doing these things too. Local nature centers and county conservation boards are great places to start. Begin a collection of books that will help you identify features and inhabitants of the natural world. Iowa’s natural high points are not a matter of elevation, size, or abundance. Without dramatic mountains and canyons, midwestern naturalists have to focus closely to pick out variations in topography and habitat. Further, the Midwest is one of the most altered landscapes in the country because its climate, soils, and topography are so well suited to agriculture. Iowa’s remaining natural areas are relatively small and widely scattered. There are, however, natural gems throughout the state to be discovered and appreciated all the more.

Jim: Choose the right parents! Or relatives, friends, teachers! Anyone who will introduce you early to the outdoors and the natural world. Get outdoors early, late, in all seasons—look—listen—learn! If you find something that interests you—birds, plants, insects, lichens, rocks, clouds—get an appropriate field guide at the library or bookstore (field guides make great gifts), and read and study it. Sturdy binoculars (another fine gift) will help greatly. Go! Do! Learn on your own! There are plenty of things to see in your own neighborhood—then take on the county, the state, and the world!

What are your favorite natural areas in the Midwest?
Jean: My favorite natural areas include creeks and rivers—especially where rock outcrops occur, sites along the Upper Mississippi River valley, sites among the glacial lakes of north-central Iowa, and within the Loess Hills of western Iowa. These are places I returned to constantly for many years. Beyond Iowa’s borders, each year we return to the north shore of Lake Superior and the Platte River country of central Nebraska. And in recent years, Jim has introduced me to scenic birding loops throughout Van Buren County and Lacey-Keosauqua State Park in particular.

Jim: Whenever I can, I go to the Sand Hills of Nebraska, the Flint Hills of Kansas, the woods and lakes of northern Minnesota, the coast and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, and Van Buren County in southeast Iowa. But, hey, that’s just me.

Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar

An Interview with Jean C. Prior & James Sandrock: Part 2

Tell us about the challenges of creating The Iowa Nature Calendar.
Jean: Our greatest challenge was winnowing the number of entries we could include for each month from the amount of material we had collected. This sorting process was guided by our effort to provide a stimulating range of natural history topics and to represent the diversity of Iowa’s geography. As we discussed options and checked facts, it was also important to contact people working in other fields of natural history where our own expertise was thin.

Jim: To pare down all the information we had assembled to fit the allotted space for individual months was a challenge—eliminating Good Stuff was painful. It was a challenge to include as many things from the plant, animal, mineral, geological, topographical, and historical worlds as possible. To include all the areas of Iowa took some research and planning. Should we create a second Iowa Nature Calendar, we could present some of the historical moments in Iowa nature, such as those associated with what Lewis and Clark saw when they camped on the Iowa side of the Missouri River, the experiences of Marquette and Joliet along the Mississippi, the observations of Julien Dubuque and his lead mine enterprises, and the forts established in Iowa during the nineteenth century—what natural phenomena did they observe where and when? The work of Orestes St. John and of other geologists and naturalists such as Shimek, Macbride, Hayden, and Sherman merits recognition in this century.

What has changed in the outdoor world since your first days of enjoying and protecting it? What’s better, what’s worse?
Jean: On the “better” side, there has been a steady improvement in public awareness of the natural environment, its importance in our lives, and its accompanying conservation, resource, and ecological issues—a shift that probably started in the early 1970s. This improvement continues as educational efforts increase and diversify, and as conservation organizations offer more opportunities for people to engage with the outdoors. Also, the natural sciences have opened their doors to reach a broader public audience, resulting in a better-informed public. I am encouraged further by the ingenuity to conserve, restore, and connect habitat tracts on scales ranging from backyards to thousands of acres. Volunteer “friends” of Iowa’s parks, preserves, and natural areas provide valuable on-site support. On the “worse” side, there is ever-increasing pressure on our lands and waters to provide for many different and often conflicting uses, not only here in Iowa but throughout the country. Lost habitats are irreplaceable and affect not only their native plants and animals but the quality of human life. As with the loss of the once seemingly vast prairie ecosystem in the Midwest, there is a failure to grasp the large-scale, long-term effects of seemingly minor actions to convert land to other purposes.

Jim: There is now more awareness of and interest in, for example, clean water, livable environment, and Matters Ecological in general. The current interest in the reestablishment of wetlands and prairies is heartening. On the darker side, however, is the continued loss of habitat for birds, for example, at both ends of their migration routes. I see fewer warblers in Lacey-Keosauqua State Park now than I did several decades ago.



Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar

Plant of the Week

Prairie groundsel
Senecio plattensis Nutt.
scientific name, 2008
Packera plattensis (Nutt.) W. A. Weber & Löve
other common names: ragwort, groundsel, squaw-weed, prairie ragwort
Senecio: Latin name of a plant; from senex, “an old man,” referring to the whitish cast of many species or to the white hairs of the pappus
Plattensis: named for the Platte River region
Daisy family: Asteraceae (Compositae)

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

An Interview with Jean C. Prior & James Sandrock: Part 1

Jean, you’re a geologist, and Jim, you're a dedicated birdwatcher. Tell us how you became interested in the outdoor world.
Jean: The outdoors has been a magnet since childhood. I recall astronomy outings led by my grandmother in Massachusetts and finding fossil shells along mountain roads on the drives east from Ohio. Later memories include climbing Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire with my family and hiking with a national park ranger in Yellowstone. I was fortunate to have parents who enjoyed travel and were enthused by scenic vistas. Also, parts of our summers were spent on the Ohio shore of Lake Erie. The weather, waves, sand dunes, beach, and adjacent marshlands were always interesting and, over time, very influential.

Jim: Through birds! At the age of 50, abruptly and inexplicably, I became interested in, of all things, birds. (Note: Until I was 50, the “outdoors” and “nature” were what I saw through the window when I looked up from a book or when I walked to the library from my office.) On a clear, bright, March day sometime in the Middle Ages, I happened on Cone Marsh with a group led by Mike Newlon, who introduced me to the world of birds. There, to my astonishment, were many species of waterfowl, shorebirds, and passerines. Up to that time, I knew only “a duck,” “a sparrow,” “a hawk.” Suddenly, there were many types of ducks, sparrows, and hawks. Amazing! I became a birder who birded ferociously in Hickory Hill Park and southeast Iowa at first, then in Texas, South Dakota, Arizona, Florida, Maine, Minnesota, Canada, and Europe. And, during these birding expeditions, I grew more aware of and interested in the natural surroundings in which birds—and I—did our thing. From Jean, I have learned to view nature and the environment through a glass clearly, a glass that was not part of my life before looking through it at birds.


What other insects or plants or animals are you especially interested in?
Jean: Since coming to Iowa in 1965, I’ve had a strong interest in the state’s native prairie flora and fauna. I was fortunate to spend time in the field with naturalists from other disciplines while serving on the State Preserves Advisory Board and while participating in outdoor education field trips. These experiences whetted my interest in prairie plants as well as fens, forests, birds, and archaeology. Now retired from the Iowa Geological Survey, I especially enjoy our birding trips (both the birds and their habitats), those in Iowa and those along the Texas Gulf Coast and in Minnesota’s North Woods.

Jim: Most interesting, most magnetic to me are grasslands. For some unexplained reason, I feel more at home, more engagiert in and with nature when I walk in, drive through, or look at a large grassland. A trip through the Dakotas, the Flint Hills of Kansas, the Sand Hills of Nebraska is more gratifying than time spent in the Rockies, the Appalachians, or the Alps. The constellation of grassland birds, plants, insects, and mammals as well as their history and future holds charm and interest for me.

Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar, illustrated by Claudia McGehee