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Illinois Native Plant Society 2008 ANNUAL MEETING June 6-8, 2008 Morris Inn--200 Gore Road--Morris, Illinois (Gore Rd is just to the North on Route 47 from I-80 Exit 112) Spend Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday morning exploring the natural areas of the Chicago region.
Registration required
Hosted by the Northeast Chapter of the Illinois Native Plant Society
The Agenda:
Friday Evening, June 6
6:30 to 8:00pm
William Glass, Ecologist for the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, will deliver the plenary address in the meeting rooms of the Morris Inn. The power point presentation, at 7:00, will cover the geomorphologic forces and the resulting plant communities found in this part of Illinois.
Following the presentation, INPS members and their accompanying families are invited to the Goose Lake Prairie picnic area for hot dogs and a prairie sunset.
Saturday, June 7
Field Trips-----Several field trips are available. Box lunches will be provided and lunch will be at a stop during the field trip. All trips leave from the hotel at 9:00 a.m. and return around 3:30 p.m. Waterproof footwear is recommended for most of these sites.
1. Dolomite Prairie, Led by Eric Ulaszek. Limit 20 people. This trip will concentrate on the rare dolomitic prairies of Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie and Grant Creek Prairie in the Des Plaines Conservation Area of Will County.
2. Fens, Led by Al & Barb Wilson. Limit 24 people, vans provided. Spend the day exploring a bit of Wisconsin slid down south of the border, a true northern Illinois fen at Lake-in-the-Hills Fen in McHenry County.
3. Remnant Prairies, Led by Ron Panzer. Limit 12 people. The Indian Boundary Prairies are a true south Cook County treasure. Last year USA Today named this one of the top 10 places to see spring; it is pretty darn nice the rest of the year too.
4. Recreated Prairie, Led by Kurt Dreisliker. Limit 20 people. Visit Schulenburg Prairie, a mature prairie restoration at the Morton Arboretum that shows what can be done. Other parts of the Arboretum will be visited as time allows.
5. Woodlands, Led by Rich Hyerczyk & Floyd Catchpole. Limit 20 people. Visit two intriguing woodlands. Pilcher Park is moist woodland along Hickory Creek in Joliet, and McKinley Woods boasts dry, sunny woodland on a point in the Des Plaines River Valley.
6. The Sands, Led by William Glass. Limit 20 people. Visit the “other” Kankakee Sands, located near the confluence of the Kankakee and Des Plaines rivers. Braidwood Dunes and Savanna, Sand Ridge Savanna & Hitt’s Siding preserve examples of oak savanna, sedge meadows and prairies in sand from ancient glacial Lake Wauponsee.
7. Sedge Meadows, Led by Andrew Neill and Brook Herman. Limit 12 people. Joliet Junior College Natural Areas and Rock Run Preserve are both located along Rock Run. They provide examples of diverse sedge meadows and wetlands in the urban settings of Joliet.
Daytime Lecture Programs
These are open to the public at large, and will be held in the Morris Inn Meeting Rooms in Morris. These lectures provide something for those who are not going on field trips, and seek to educate the local populace.
9:00 am. Rain Gardens. Presented by Dr Stacy James, Water Resources Scientist with the Prairie Rivers Network. This presentation provides a description of what rain gardens are, how they function to capture rain and beautify communities while keeping them safe from flooding, and how to construct and maintain them. Free handouts include a rain garden brochure, a native plant list, and website links. Attendees will leave the presentation with enough knowledge and resources to construct their own rain gardens.
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