Plant of the Week

Ground cherry
Physalis virginiana Mill.
other common names: Virginia ground cherry, old squaw berry, tomatos del campo, husk tomatoes, eastern ground cherry
Physalis: from Greek, meaning “bladder,” referring to the bladderlike husk of the fruit
Virginiana: meaning “of Virginia”
Nightshade family: Solanaceae

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

Don't miss this seminar...

Anatomy of the Flood –Preparing for the Future – Seminar

The Iowa Floods of 2008 are receding into history, but information gleaned from the disaster can help mitigate against future floods.

A two-hour session on “Anatomy of Iowa Floods:  Preparing for the Future” will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 7, in Elkader, Iowa at the FreedomBank Community Room, 4:00 - 6:00 PM. Topics will include climate change trends in Iowa precipitation and run-off; floodplain management strategies; rural-urban watershed coalition building; water quality; the work of the Iowa Flood Center; and a review of public policy issues. 

This seminar is hosted by the University of Iowa’s Center for Global & Regional Environmental Research, Rebuild Iowa Office, University of Northern Iowa Center for Energy and Environmental Education, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Iowa State University Extension, Iowa League of Cities and the Iowa State Association of Counties.

If you can't make this seminar, please keep an eye on the blog for posts of future events, and please check out A Watershed Year: Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of 2008 edited by Cornelia F. Mutel.

An Interview with Kirk Henderson

What was the catalyst—the magic moment—that brought you to appreciate prairies in the first place?
I signed up for Daryl Smith’s tallgrass prairie seminar in the fall semester of 1988. Prior to that I had no concept of prairie. Daryl got me hooked, and prairie felt good, especially as I met more and more of the people. They all cared so deeply. And I was fortunate to step into a situation right away, working with native vegetation along Iowa’s county roadsides.

Tell us about your specific role at UNI’s Tallgrass Prairie Center.
At the TPC I’m program manager for UNI’s Integrated Roadside Vegetation Management program. That means working with all the counties in the state, promoting prairie for roadside vegetation. In Iowa, roadsides have been a bridge between conservation and transportation. Since there is generally better funding in transportation, working in roadside prairie restoration has been especially gratifying.

Beyond the tallgrass species, what other plants and animals are you especially interested in?
Other plants and animals? Not too many. I was an English major before I was a biology major. Beyond tallgrass prairie, my interests don’t run toward a bunch of plants and animals. I escape into Black Hawk Creek with my kayak now and then. But overall I’m more of a bureaucrat than a botanist. I enjoy organizing and coordinating and trying to communicate and working within the system for something I believe in.

What has changed in the outdoor world since your first days of trying to learn about it and protect it? What’s better, what’s worse?
I think the boomer generation came along when things were about at their worst environmentally. The need for protection and restoration of natural resources was great. It has been a struggle, but aside from a few political ups and downs, things have mostly improved since I’ve been aware. There is so much more public awareness, I think. So much land has been protected. And funding for such things has improved. We will still destroy a prairie occasionally, though. It’s not sacred to everyone.

What advice would you give to beginning conservationists?
When looking for a career in conservation, get the training and then be flexible. You don’t have to be hired by The Nature Conservancy to make a contribution. There are lots of agencies involved, ones you might not think of right away: departments of transportation, the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Geological Survey. Large-habitat organizations such as Pheasants Forever and Ducks Unlimited hire people. And more and more private companies offer opportunities.

What are the particular challenges of being a conservationist in the Midwest?
If you need large or pristine habitats, the Midwest is not a great place. But our need is great. Our land use issues are immense, the economic forces are daunting, and maybe most challenging of all is our culture. We have such a strong farming tradition that many people can’t imagine anything else. Sometimes I suspect that most of the people still living in Iowa are the ones who do live by bread alone. There is no shortage of work for a conservationist in this state.

What’s the main thing that you hope to accomplish with the publication of The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Prairie Restoration in the Upper Midwest?
We really tried to put everything you might need to know about prairie restoration into one book. There is no such thing as a manual to end all manuals. But we tried to be complete to a depth the average person could access. And then we had fun here and there inflicting our biases so everyone will think like us.

What are your favorite natural areas in Iowa and the Midwest?
Iowa has some amazing habitats. I like to go into the Loess Hills, and I love northeast Iowa. But I really appreciate the places closest to home. We are fortunate to have George Wythe State Park, Black Hawk Park, Hartman Reserve, and Cedar Hills Sand Prairie. The greenbelt along Black Hawk Creek, inside the Waterloo city limits, is the best to me because it’s the easiest to get to. I’m still discovering there. 

Kirk Henderson, The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Prairie Restoration in the Upper Midwest

An Interview with Brent Butler

The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Seed and Seedling Identification in the Upper Midwest makes identifying these little green sprouts look possible. Would a beginning gardener be able to use this guide?
We felt that this guide should and could reach a wide audience. The success of the book really comes down to its effective format and functionality.

The illustrations present information so clearly. How did you come up with the format?
Dave Williams handed me his expert writings on seedling identification about 3 years ago. As with other prairie-related publications, I was presented with the challenge to design and illustrate the information for the broadest possible audience. The solution to this guide came in three parts. First, grouping the species based on their key characteristics gives everyone, from experts to novices, clear and simple instructions for identifying the seedlings. Second, visual aids and color markers allow the viewer to focus on the key characteristics and stunning macro photography. Third, drawings of forb and grass seedlings, based on actual specimens in the guide, reinforce the information presented throughout the book.

The illustrations present information so clearly. How did you come up with the format?
I used live specimens and photography to create the artwork as accurately as possible. The illustrations needed to convey the characteristics of the seedlings. I produced the line art digitally, based on actual seedlings used in the guide. The goal of the line art was to accompany the text used to describe and identify the seedlings. Creating the drawings was really a labor of love.

What was trickiest about growing and photographing the plants?
Timing. Some species take months to germinate. We had a small window to photograph the seedlings before they were too big to shoot. The lighting we used caused some plants to wilt, so we had only minutes to set up and shoot certain species.

White wild indigo Baptisia alba | Fabaceae, legume family

Brent Butler, The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Seed and Seedling Identification in the Upper Midwest

Little bluestem

Schizachyrium scoparium | Poaceae, grass family

From The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Seed and Seedling Identification in the Upper Midwest
by Dave Williams | illustrations by Brent Butler

An Interview with Dave Williams: Part 2

The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Seed and Seedling Identification in the Upper Midwest makes identifying these little green sprouts look possible. Tell us what motivated you to write this book.
My greatest motivation for writing this book was to give anyone interested in growing tallgrass prairie plants the ability and confidence to identify prairie seedlings. It all started in 1998 when I was conducting graduate research at UNI. A major part of this research involved being able to identify prairie seedlings of 23 forb species. Only one prairie seedling identification book was available: Prairie Seedlings Illustrated by Laura Jackson and Lora Dittmer. This publication was very helpful but included only 12 of the 23 forbs that I needed to identify. So, as a winter project in 1999, I grew all 23 forbs in the UNI greenhouse. I sketched thousands of seedlings as they emerged and developed. I had to use a hand lens to find unique plant characteristics. I created a spreadsheet to organize the information in a way that I could use in the field. What I thought would be a short winter project took the entire winter and spring to complete.

Your guide focuses on 72 species. How did you select these?
I selected the species for this book based upon the following. First, species most likely to be used in a prairie planting. I have used all the species in this book in various seed mixes over the years. Second, availability of seed. Individuals can purchase seed of all species in this book from commercial sources. Third, species somewhat easy to propagate. Seed of most species included in this book can be germinated but may require additional treatments to maximize germination. Fourth, species that belong to important guilds of prairie species. A good example of a prairie guild is the legume species, species in the bean family that take nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it to a form that plants can use. Legumes provide fertilization to the prairie. Fifth, species not listed as threatened or endangered. Some threatened and endangered prairie species have very specific habitats in the wild and may have unique genetic traits. From a conservation standpoint, it could be detrimental to remnant populations of threatened and endangered species if nonremnant plants are established all over the landscape.

What audiences did you aim for? Would a beginning gardener be able to use this guide?
Initially, I thought natural resource managers would use this guide to assess prairie plant establishment in conservation plantings. However, as this project evolved, I realized that anybody with an interest in planting tallgrass prairie could benefit from this guide. So the project began as a technical resource guide containing lots of botanical jargon and has been reworked many times to become a user-friendly guide. 

The illustrations present information so clearly. How did you come up with the format?
From day 1, my goal was to develop a system that a person without any seedling identification experience could use to identify prairie seedlings in the field. Common sense and botanical sense dictated the format. Dichotomous plant keys are time-tested tools that many botanists use to identify plants. While these keys are essential for plant identification, they require extensive botanical training to be effective. I used the dichotomous key format for my guide but simplified the number and extent of choices. The challenge was to distill what seemed like an infinite number of seedling characteristics into a small number of groups so users could differentiate seedlings of 72 species.

What was trickiest about growing and photographing the plants?
First, I had to define what was a seedling plant! My goal was to illustrate seedlings at the stage they might be found in a planted prairie near the end of the first growing season. This was somewhat of an arbitrary designation because seedlings can change in a few short weeks. Ultimately, determining the seedling stage of each species was based upon my observations of new prairie plantings over the last 20 years.

It became clear early on that the only way to photograph seedling plants and their associated parts was to grow them in a greenhouse from seed and grow many individuals for each species. Plants grow fast in the greenhouse and slow in the field. I found that most species needed only 4 to 5 weeks of greenhouse time after planting before they were similar to seedlings in the field at the end of the first growing season.

Photographing the small seedling plants was very challenging. David O’Shields and I experimented with exposures, light combinations, and backgrounds until we realized that we needed expert advice from someone experienced with macro photography. Jeffery Byrd of the UNI Art Department graciously volunteered his time and expertise to help us get the exposure and lights right. Positioning the seedlings on the stage was very time-consuming. Heat from the lights caused the seedlings to bend and curl, which added another level of complexity. Sometimes aphids crawled along the plant and interfered with the photograph. I suspect we took 30 to 40 photographs of each species. 

Dave Williams, The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Seed and Seedling Identification in the Upper Midwest

Plant of the Week

Yucca
Yucca glauca Nutt.
other common names: beargrass, grass cactus, small soapweed, soap root, Spanish bayonet
Yucca: the native Haitian name for this genus
Glauca: from Greek, meaning generally “grayish or bluish green”
Lily family: Liliaceae (sometimes Agavaceae)

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