Ancient prairie, home to endangered bees and rare plants, may soon be razed by airport

UngulateNerd92

UngulateNerd92

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A growing group of people are fighting to save a rare Illinois prairie from imminent destruction.

Illinois, the Prairie State, was once dominated by 22 million acres of grasslands, home to an almost unimaginable diversity of plants and animals. But now, only one-ten-thousandth of the state’s original prairies, or roughly 2,500 acres, remain.

One of the rarest grassland types, dry gravel prairie, is the most endangered: Only 18 high-quality acres remain. Now, Chicago-Rockford International Airport plans to destroy Bell Bowl Prairie, which contains five acres of this precious biome, as part of a planned expansion.

Ancient prairie, home to endangered bees and rare plants, may soon be razed by airport
 
For all we know this could be a site Thismia americana. Maybe someone should do a survey for that species before they try to do any construction. If the species is found, I guarantee that would stop any construction.
 
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birdsandbats said:
For all we know this could be a site Thismia americana. Maybe someone should do a survey for that species before they try to do any construction. If the species is found, I guarantee that would stop any construction.
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Very interesting, Thank you for sharing this with us. What do you think the likelihood of a survey happening might be? Do you have this species in Wisconsin?
 
UngulateNerd92 said:
Very interesting, Thank you for sharing this with us. What do you think the likelihood of a survey happening might be? Do you have this species in Wisconsin?
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Thismia americana is a possibly extinct species of parasitic plant species that has only ever been documented at one site, in a prairie just outside of Chicago. That prairie was turned into a neighborhood in the 1930s. The species is extremely inconspicuous and is only visible above ground for a couple of weeks in midsummer, so there is a possiblity it still grows undetected in some other prairies in the area.
 
birdsandbats said:
Thismia americana is a possibly extinct species of parasitic plant species that has only ever been documented at one site, in a prairie just outside of Chicago. That prairie was turned into a neighborhood in the 1930s. The species is extremely inconspicuous and is only visible above ground for a couple of weeks in midsummer, so there is a possiblity it still grows undetected in some other prairies in the area.
Click to expand...

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing this with me. I did a bit of my own further research and came across this article.

An Extinction in Chicago

Chicago may seem like a strange place for the last stronghold of a plant species, however, that was the case back in 1916. In 1912, a graduate student by the name of Norma Pfeiffer was exploring a wet prairie near Torrence Avenue in Chicago when she stumbled across something peculiar. What she found had completely stumped the botany department. Her description of this little mystery ended up earning her a Ph.D.

What she had discovered was indeed a plant, but it was like nothing else known in this region. The plant was named Thismia americana. T. americana, like all member of the Burmanniaceae family, is a mycoheterotroph. It made its living by parasitizing mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. Because of this lifestyle, T. americana did not bother with leaves or even chlorophyll. It simply stored up enough energy to produce its tiny translucent white and blue-green striped little flower, which barely breached the soil surface.

An Extinction in Chicago — In Defense of Plants
 
Here is another relevant article about Thismia americana.

The Mystery of Thismia americana, the Parasitic Plant Found Only in Chicago

"WHAT HAPPENED TO Thismia americana?"

It's a question that fascinates botanists around the world, but one that few in the general public have probably ever considered, despite the fact that it has been asked for well over a century.

In August 1912, University of Chicago graduate student Norma Pfeiffer was exploring a damp, low-lying prairie near the wetlands surrounding Chicago's Lake Calumet when she spotted a small, glabrous, white plant with delicate streaks of blue-green ringing the mouth of the flower. It was unlike anything else in the surrounding area.

Indeed, as she soon realized after finding additional specimens over the ensuing months, the plant was unlike anything else in the entire country.

https://www.realclearscience.com/bl...he_parasitic_plant_found_only_in_chicago.html
 
Here is another relevant paper about Thismia americana. This paper is from the International Journal of Plant Sciences.

Thismia americana, the 101st Anniversary of a Botanical Mystery

Premise of research. One hundred and one years ago, Thismia americana was discovered in a prairie near Chicago in the United States. This tiny mycoheterotrophic plant was observed at the type locality for a few years but is now considered to be extinct. The occurrence of the mainly tropical genus Thismia in temperate North America remains a mystery, particularly because T. americana’s putative most closely related species occurs in Australia and New Zealand. Here we evaluate the affinities of T. americana using morphological data and the relationships of the two other species in Thismia subgen. Thismia sect. Rodwaya with molecular data.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/674315
 
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