Monday, February 6, 2012

Illinois State Naturel Maintain: In Lake County, a vestige of prairie gets state defense - chicagotribune.com

It won't overwhelm you like the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. It really is not as massive as Yellowstone Park. In truth, it is possibly not as big as a close by forest maintain. But to some, the 93-acre Dokum Mskoda Sedge Meadow Nature Preserve in Lake County is even much more gorgeous than a tropical rain forest, and to defend its rareness and refined attractiveness, it was lately specified an Illinois State Nature Preserve.
The designation of open up room as a condition nature preserve provides it the highest protection, even more so than a forest protect,  mentioned Steve Byers, subject representative for the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission.




Byers stated no 1 can produce the land, whose name will come from a Potawatomi phrase indicating  peaceful prairie.  No roads can be constructed through it, and probably no trails will be produced within the maintain, he said.
East of the Tri-Condition Tollway among Illinois Highways 120 and 137, the protect features 98 scarce and native vegetation, including a few kinds of blazing stars, deep purple-flowered vegetation referred to as bottle gentian and a small, simply disregarded state-endangered plant referred to as the golden sedge.
The prairie dock, a more frequent prairie plant, sends thick six-foot-tall stems to the sky, culminating in a lemon-yellow sunflower-like bloom. The land looks a lot as it did in the course of the time of the early American settlers and the Native Us citizens before them. In reality, the roots of the prairie crops in this undisturbed preserve are most likely hundreds of years outdated and get to 16 or more ft beneath the ground, experts say.
Byers credits a condominium association, which owns the land, and a conservation organization with making sure the site's safety.
The Fields of Cambridge Condominium Association considered selling the land till members learned of its special naturel, said Marc Speziale, president of the association. Speziale concedes he didn't know much about prairies and sedge meadows, but as he talked with Byers and Steve Barg, executive director of the Liberty Prairie Conservancy in Grayslake, he started to understand how critical it was to help save this residence.
I realized this preserve is even rarer than a rain forest,  Speziale explained.
In simple fact, only about a single-hundredth of 1 % of the state's native prairie/sedge meadow remnants are left, said Barg, whose team just purchased eight acres of the preserve, to deliver the complete 101 acres.
This is a remnant of what when coated twenty million acres in Illinois,  Barg explained.  This is a sacred spot. 
Barg praised the condo association for doing work with his team, as well as with the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, Chicago Wilderness and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Assistance to ensure the ecosystem remains intact.
It really is an affirmation that men and women in Lake County — whether or not they are living in condos, in Lincolnshire or Antioch — treatment about the land, the scarce areas and want to roll up their sleeves and do one thing about it,  Barg said.
Volunteers are helping get rid of invasive plants so the native plants prosper, Barg mentioned. Non-native plants that were launched from somewhere else can wreak havoc on native ecosystems. Some of the species that could just take over at this protect incorporate buckthorn and phragmites, which need to have to be eradicated, he Chinese Wholesale Jerseys mentioned.
Seeds can be gathered from plants in the preserve to use for close by prairie and sedge meadow restoration projects, Barg explained.
Speziale mentioned there is much more land to the north that could be preserved and extra to the 101 acres.
We are extremely proud of this venture,  Speziale explained.  We desired to embrace the land that belonged to indigenous people. And we are not stopping right here. 
Sheryl DeVore is a community producer for TribLocal.
shdevore@tribune.com
report=2012-02-07data


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