This was our only site out of Illinois, right across the border in East Chicago/Gary, Indiana. I had never been to Indiana before, and boy was this an interesting introduction! It was a day full of surprises for sure.
This part of Indiana is very industrial, as you can see from this view of our site. The restoration is right next to the expressway and a few factories, so it was very strange to see a little preserve among the industry. Gorgeous day for sampling though, and we could see some egrets in the pond!
We had yet to realize…our site had been mowed the day before! The little patch on the right was left because the plugs were hand-sown by kids from a nearby school. Mowing is a common maintenance technique practiced in restored prairies, a cheaper version of controlled burns that scares the neighbors a bit less. It doesn’t work as well as burning, but serves the same function of keeping down weeds and taking out dead growth. Unfortunately the site had been mowed without the knowledge of our guide from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, a wonderful woman named Emily who was very apologetic about the mixup.
Here’s a sign that says “No Mowing”… but it’s been mowed. Model: Bob.
Since we couldn’t sample our site, Emily took us to a remnant dune and swale ecosystem nearby. It was beautiful! You can see all the water lilies in the pond, which has been extended by beavers over the past few years. We saw bladderworts in the water too! I didn’t know about these plants before, but they’re super cool. They don’t have leaves, so no chlorophyll and no photosynthesis. Instead they get nutrients by collecting water in their “bladder” structure and then consuming the microscopic organisms they capture in it! We also saw a small cactus on the path, and apparently the small ones are native to sandy regions in this area!
This plant, Proserpinaca palustris (Mermaid Weed), lives half in the water and half out of it, like a water lily. The cool part is that as its leaves get submerged and then go deeper into the water, they become increasingly frilled, while the leaves in the air are smooth on the edges! Hopefully you can see that gradation in this photo a bit. I have a hypothesis for the origins of the genus name, although I haven’t done research on it so it’s a bit of guesswork. But I think that the genus is named after Proserpina, or Persephone as the Greeks called her, who was the daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest. (You can skip this part if you know the story!) Hades fell in love with her and, in true Greek god style, kidnapped her instead of attempting to woo her and kept her in the Underworld. While there she ate six pomegranate seeds. Meanwhile up above, her mother refused to allow spring to come as long as her daughter was held captive, so humanity was suffering. Finally Hades relented, but Persephone had to stay six months of each year in the Underworld, a month for each seed she ate. While she is there we have winter, and while she is above with her mother we have summer. As Persephone is half in the Underworld and half in the world above, so the Mermaid Weed is half in the water and half out of it! Can you tell I grew up with Greek mythology?
