Degree Name

Master of Science in Education (MSEd)

Semester of Degree Completion

1999

Thesis Director

Gordon C. Tucker

Abstract

Allison Prairie in Lawrence County, Illinois is a five acre recreation of a gravel prairie. The Allison Prairie Restoration is the largest and best remaining example of a sand and gravel prairie in the Wabash Border Natural Division of Illinois. A total of 112 species of vascular plants representing 35 families are known to exist at the Allison Prairie Restoration (Table 1). Heterotheca camporum (Greene) Shinners (golden aster), Melilotus alba Medic. (white sweet clover), and Sporobolus asper (Michx.) Kunth (dropseed) are dominants (Table 2 and 3). There is 1 gymnosperm species, Juniperus virginiana L. (red cedar), 30 monocot species and 81 dicot species. The largest family represented is the Poaceae with 22 species followed by the Asteraceae with 15 species and the Rosaceae with 9 species. Presently, a minimum of 28 of the 85 prairie plant species identified by Schwegman and others in a 1988 survey of cemetery and railroad prairies in the Wabash Border Natural Division are present on the site.

Twenty-six of the species identified are alien, not native to Illinois. This represents 23% of the species occurring at the Allison Prairie Restoration. Melilotus alba Medic. (white sweet clover), Melilotus officinalis (L.) Pallas (yellow sweet clover) and Pastinaca sativa L. (parsnip) are common exotic species with Melilotus alba Medic. being a dominant. This site contains the state endangered royal catchfly, Silene regia (Herkert 1991) and is the only privately owned royal catchfly population for which a management agreement exists (Edgin 1998). According to Ulaszek and Ketzner in their report to the Illinois Natural History Survey in 1991 the Allison Prairie Restoration is one of only four remaining locations of the royal catchfly in Illinois. The site also contains one other noteworthy species Opuntia humifusa (Raf.) Raf. (prickly-pear cactus.) (Figure 4).

Future restoration efforts on the Allison Prairie site should focus on the continued removal of woody and herbaceous exotic species. Realistically, exotic species will probably always plague this site due to its disturbed and fragmented nature. However, keeping exotic species numbers below twenty percent should be an attainable objective. Continued seeding, transplanting and root-stock planting should occur with particular attention being paid to those species identified by Schwegman and others as being representative of the Wabash Border Division. From this list, plants such as Aristida purpurascens Poir (arrowfeather), Sporobolus clandestinus (Biehler) Hitchc. (dropseed), Amorpha fruticosa L. (false indigo), Asclepias hirtella (Pennell) Woodson (tall green milkweed), Asclepias tuberosa L. ssp. interior Woodson (butterfly weed), Lithrospermum carolinense (J.F. Gmel.) MacM. (hairy pucoon), Ratibida pinnata (Vent.) Barnh. (gray-headed coneflower), and Rudbeckia subtomentosa Pursh. (fragrant coneflower) should receive primary focus as these plants represent dominants or typical associates in other gravel prairie sites like those in Tazewell County or Rock River Valley. Special consideration should be given to plants like Sisyrinchium albibum Raf. (blue-eyed grass), Comandra umbellata (L.) Nutt. (false toadflax), Koeleria macrantha (Ledeb.) Spreng. (June grass), Echinacea palIida Nutt. (pale coneflower), Oxalis violacea L. (purple oxalis), Dodecatheon meadia L. (shooting -star), Corydalis micrantha (Engelm.) Gray (slender corydalis), and Lithospermum canescens (Michx.) Lehm. Even though these plants did not make Schwegman's 1988 list, they represent common plants of gravel prairie remnants in northern Illinois which could also be included in the Allison Prairie Restoration. Future analysis of the site should focus on a more in-depth soil analysis to determine the exact soil type and soil condition at the site. Emphasis should be placed on identifying trace elements possibly present in the soil which might indicate the degree to which earlier dumping on the site has affected restoration efforts.

Download

Included in

Botany Commons

Share

COinS