Plant monitor training! (Less boring than it sounds)

Maybe we do need to come up with a better name for it--"plant monitor training" doesn't really do it justice.  Karen at Audubon-Chicago Region has been coordinating a series of botany outings, in order to cultivate more highly-skilled botanists in the area, so that we potentially have more capable plant monitors in the event of a future natural areas audit, like the Chicago Wilderness and Grassland audits a few years back.  Not plant monitors like the single-species monitors for Plants of Concern; not to knock them, of course (I am one myself), but monitors with a wide range of knowledge.  This is sorely needed, because let's face it:  the skilled botanists are aging, and it's not exactly the cool thing that kids like to do these days. 

Our first outing of the season was at Somme Woods on 7/29, led by Somme stewards Linda Masters and Stephen Packard.  We had originally intended to go to Somme Prairie Grove across the street, but we parked at Somme Woods and encountered so many wicked species, we never made it out.  I rescind all former statements that the woods are boring in July.  Healthy, open, restored woods give you knockouts like these:

 Lobelia cardinalis, which attracted a very mild-mannered ruby-throated hummingbird (just LOOK at those little nectar-baits!)

 Glade mallow (my first reaction:  Why does that maple seedling have white flowers?)

 The very overlook-able marsh bluegrass

 Ranunculus flabellaris, known to some as floating yellow buttercup (or some permutation of those terms), which was found covering the floor of the completely dry Eagle Pond

 Sium suave (water parsnip), not to be confused with its cousins-in-close-proximity cowbane and water hemlock

 The tiny state-threatened gem, marsh speedwell

 Carex squarrosa...there's no mistaking this one.

 Purple Joe-Pye weed...lighter in color than its cousin spotted Joe-Pye, and of course, lacking spots on the stem.

 Floating manna grass--very simple and understated.  Like the honey badger, Glyceria septentrionalis don't give a shit.

 Lactuca floridana, or tall blue lettuce.  Someday I will memorize this name. 

 Carex lupuliformis, with its bizarre knobby little seeds.  Who knows how long I've been seeing this and thinking it was its close relative, Carex lupulina.  Botany is humbling.

 Flat-top aster.  Not many whites are brighter than this.

Aaaaand...forked aster.  Not visibly forked in any perceptible way, but whatever.  It's being proposed as a federally endangered species.  It can be called whatever it wants.

Let's clear those woods, ladies and gentlemen!