Helped this beautiful male eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina) across the road today. These are terrestrial turtles, but really seem to enjoy water in the form of rain.

Here are some neat things I found yesterday while conducting plant surveys in southern Illinois. Off to Starved Rock State Park for a talk in spring ephemerals this afternoon!

Yesterday was a very special day. I presented about Spring Ephemeral Wildflowers at the Starved Rock Visitor Center and then toured the park. Site naturalist Lisa Sons told me about a lesser known canyon... facebook.com/14433863325432…

Whenever I travel throughout Illinois, I always look for nature preserves to visit along my travel path. Yesterday I visited two nature preserves I had not been to before. First I stopped at George S. Parks... facebook.com/14433863325432…

I’m back home and preparing for 5 days of plant identification classes so I felt I had to squeeze in some botanizing in the last 24 hours. You could say I saw some pretty neat plants! Last fall I found a... facebook.com/14433863325432…

Yesterday, after a botanical survey with a private landowner, I visited a site that was mentioned to me by one of my followers on a recent post. Humiston Woods Nature Center is a 400-acre woodland in... facebook.com/14433863325432…

Just wrapped up 5 plant identification classes in 6 days in Williamson, DuPage, Lake, and Pope counties. It makes me so happy that people want to learn about plants. There are and will be more opportunities... facebook.com/14433863325432…

Just a random collection of photos I’ve taken this past week and didn’t share yet.

This was a neat find today, Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum), along the side of the road in Alexander County. I have only seen this species in southern Illinois in one other location, but it’s fairly common in... facebook.com/14433863325432…

I found some neat plants on the vegetation survey I conducted at Touch of Nature today. I’m happy for this cool weather because I don’t think it will last much longer!

Here are some photos of plants and animals from this past week of vegetation surveys and other wanderings in southern Illinois.

Today was another unique day in the hills and hollers of southern Illinois. My friend and fellow botanist Abel Kinser and I walked the property of a landowner in Jackson County that had been managing the woods... facebook.com/14433863325432…

I know I’m the Illinois Botanizer but here are some animals I’ve seen lately. 😉

I participated in a sedgeblitz today, where a group of sedgeheads (botanists interested in sedges) gathered to see how many sedge species we could identify in the wild in one day. While the term sedge refers... facebook.com/14433863325432…

Here’s just a few pics of field work in Alexander County this week.

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