Why We Illinoisans Live In the An Excellent State (for nature)

I follow several other blogs closely, all of which are located in beautiful places like British Columbia or Pennsylvania or North Carolina or even southern Ohio.  All of these places, especially British Columbia, are beautiful, and I find myself suffering from location envy.  Even in Ohio, there are hills.  We of central Illinois, on the other hand, have heard that steep elevation changes exist and some of us have marveled at them on vacations.  Then we come home to a place where the curvature of the earth is visible.  Elkhart Hill, a small mound of earth, is a landmark along Route 55 north of Springfield and south of Lincoln, because it is the only hill in the area.  And if there were more hills in central Illinois, what would we look at?  Corn, with occasional soybeans.  Between fields, there are rows and occasionally hedges of trees. Along waterways, there can be a good deal of second-growth, second-rate forest, but that seems to be about the most interesting landform in central Illinois.

Yet, this is too harsh, although this description does seem accurate at times.  For instance, the Illinois River provides abundant exceptions.  Grandview Drive in Peoria Heights, Illinois is one of the best exemptions.

Lovely, isn't it?   In reality, central Illinois residents have plenty of nature all around them.  For instance, we have every type of weather invented, short of hurricanes, and we occasionally get the aftereffects of those, too.  I've lived through a tornado passing over my house, multiple ice storms, temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for a week, three month long droughts, floods, five inches of rain in an hour,  a couple of blizzards, more severe thunderstorm warnings than you could shake a stick at, and hail an inch deep. That was all just earlier today.

I might be joking, a bit.  But in comparison to someplace like Portland, Oregon, where it's only rainy and cloudy, with sunshine once in awhile, we have a good variety.  All of the above have happened in the last ten years, by the way. 

Of course, Illinois has other wonderful nature perks.  Within a three hour trip in any direction, a majority of Eastern Plains and Eastern Hardwoods plants and animals can be found, as well as the abundant, Midwest-only, Prairie Trillium and a few other similar species:  A prairie trillium is found below.

This is not a typical prairie trillium, as this is the only trillium out of the thousands that I have seen with four leaves and four petals.  This is an infrequent genetic mutation among all trilliums, and especially, it seems, among Trillium grandiflorum and Trillium undulatum of the Appalachians.  Granted, these are the most noticeable and photographed species, thus biasing the sample. 

Anyway, Illinois has nine of the eastern  U.S. Trillium species, including three species.  (Trillium nivale, Trillium recurvatum, and Trillium viride) with  a predominantly Midwestern distribution, We also have three species of Opuntia or prickly pear cactus.  Foxglove beardstongue, Penstemon digitalis, turn prairie fields and roadsides white in May, and several more western penstemon grow along the western edge of Illinois.  Scorpions roam the bluffs of southwestern Illinois, while several species of traditionally Appalachian  Plethodon salamanders hide out in Vermilion River woodlands.  Both the western Massasauga rattlesnake and the eastern Timber rattlesnake live in Illinois, though unfortunately I have seen neither.  

The point I am trying to make is that Illinois is a crossroads.  Plants from all over the U.S. grow here, whether western, eastern, northern, or southern.  Jack pines, little bluestem grasses, eastern hemlocks (I will prove that soon enough) and bald cypresses all grow in Illinois, as the borders of their ranges fall here.  Thus, within a short drive to any nature preserve, I can see a vast variety of the plants and animals of North America. This is why Illinois is amazing.  We have bald-cypress swamps and glacial bogs, hill praries and rich woodland, and plant and animal species to match. Granted, not all of these are found in Central  Illinois, but we have a few prairies, including the largest hill prairie in the state.  There may be many cornfields, but there's invariably a nature preserve within an hour of any location in Central Illinois.  Thus, while we lack the natural spectacles of mountains and landforms, we have a pretty amazing state as is.*

*It would be even better if IDNR and the rest of the state had money or at least a budget.  Our DNR is the most underfunded in the country.  (UPDATE, as of the time of this writing, I mean.)