January 2007 OutdoorIllinois / 27
When you think of
deserts, you think of
sand, cacti and the
American West, not Illi-nois.
However, there
are large deposits of sand along Lake
Michigan and the Mississippi, Illinois,
Kankakee and Green rivers where these
desert-like habitats are important to more
than 70 listed plants and animals. The
sand that forms the dunes, sand prairies
and wetlands was deposited at the end
of the last glacial period, 12,000 to 8,000
years ago. Between 8,000 to 6,000
years ago, many of the rare plants and
animals migrated to Illinois from the west
during a much warmer and drier climate.
Each of the
sand areas
mentioned
above has
their own char-acteristic
group
Yes, cacti do grow in the Prairie State.
The Deserts of
Illinois
of endangered
species. The Lake
Michigan area is
home to the Karner
blue butterfly
(Lycaeides melissa
samuelis), piping
plover (Charadrius
melodus), trailing
(Juniperus horizon-talis)
and ground
(J. communis) junipers, Pitcher’s thistle
(Cirsium pitcheri) and bearberry (Arc-tostaphylos
uva-ursi), to name a few.
The Kankakee Sands near the
Kankakee River provides habitat for the
regal fritillary (Speyeria idalia), the yel-low
wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria), sweet
fern (Comptonia peregrina), orange-fringed
orchid (Platanthera ciliaris) and
narrow-leaved sundew (Drosera inter-media).
Many of these species migrated
from eastern populations in the U.S.
Sand habitats of the Green River
host the Blanding’s (Emydoidea
blandingii) and Illinois mud (Kinosternon
Cliff communities are among
the most variable and harsh
of the biotic communities in
southern Illinois.
A cliff community is char-acterized
as a natural exposure of
bedrock along with the associated vari-ety
of soils, rock debris and plants and
animals that inhabit it. Characteristics of
the associated community are deter-mined
by composition of the exposed
rock, rainfall, elevation and direction of
exposure. In these communities, the soil
is thin or absent, the parent material is at
or near the surface, and they are main-tained
at an early stage of succession by
the substrate or by natural disturbance.
The Shawnee National Forest is the
primary caretaker for the high-quality
examples of Shawnee Hills cliff commu-nities
remaining in Illinois. The Shawnee
Hills region is an area of unglaciated
uplands with rugged topography, with
Southern Illinois’ exposed rock cliffs are one of Illinois’
rarest habitats.
The Shawnee Hills
Cliff Communities
a decrease in moisture regime,
or increased drying and shading
of microhabitats; herbicide use in
the vicinity; and changes
upstream or upslope that could
change water-flow patterns.
One of the most successful
conservation and protection pro-grams
has been the designation
of Special Use Areas within the
National Forest system in which
certain activities, such as logging,
off-road vehicle recreation, or
other potentially destructive activ-ities
are restricted. In Illinois this
includes such well-known sites as
Bell Smith Springs Ecological
Area, La Rue-Pine Hills/Otter
Pond Research Natural Area, Lit-tle
Grand Canyon/Horseshoe Bluff Eco-logical
Area and Lusk Creek Canyon
Ecological Area.
—Steven R. Hill, Illinois Natural History
Survey, Champaign
many escarpments, bluffs and ravines,
and it is restricted to southern Illinois,
southwestern Indiana and western Ken-tucky.
In Illinois, the Shawnee Hills are
located in the far southern portion of the
state where they form a band from
Fountain Bluff along the Mississippi
River on the west to the mouth of the
Wabash River on the east and south to
the edge of the Ohio River lowlands.
There are seven biotic communities
on, or in close association with, the cliffs
in this region—dry limestone cliffs, moist
limestone cliffs, dry sandstone cliffs, moist
sandstone cliffs, sandstone overhangs,
limestone talus and sandstone talus.
These rare communities, and the
associated sensitive species, face sev-eral
significant threats, including: physi-cal
damage by human use (mining,
quarrying, logging, rock climbing);
human use of sandstone overhangs and
rock houses; increased rate of erosion;
Nineteen plants designated as endan-gered
or threatened in Illinois grow
on, or in close association with, cliffs in
the Shawnee Hills: Bradley’s spleen-wort,
black-stem spleenwort, American
barberry, Ofer hollow reedgrass, Bel-low’s-
beak sedge, black-edged sedge,
red honeysuckle, yellow honeysuckle,
short-sepaled beardtongue, shortleaf
pine, southern sanicula, early saxifrage,
ovate catchfly, filmy fern, French’s
shootingstar, rock clubmoss, rock chest-nut
oak, American orpine and small
flower-of-an-hour. At least two plant
species formerly known on the cliffs
have disappeared from the state in
recent years: starry cleft phlox and bar-ren
strawberry.
Reedrroott ((Ceeanotthuss heerrbacceeuss))
26 / OutdoorIllinois January 2007
flavescens) turtles, Queen-of-the-
Prairie (Filipendual rubra) and broom-rape
(Orobanche ludoviciana).
The Illinois River sands are the
southernmost deposits in Illinois. They
are characterized by the Illinois chorus
frog (Pseudacris streckeri), Illinois mud
turtle, Arogos skipper (Atrytone arogos),
regal fritillary and silvery bladderpod
(Lesquerella ludoviciana).
Finally, the sands of the Mississippi
River stretch along the northern third of
the state. The sand prairies here provide
habitat for the upland sandpiper (Bar-tramia
longicauda), loggerhead shrike
(Lanius ludovicianus) and western hog-nose
(Heterodon nasicus) and lined
(Tropidoclonion lineatum) snakes. Rare
plants found there include the large-flowered
beard tongue (Penstemon
grandiflorus), false heather (Hudsonia
tomentosa), blue grama (Bouteloua gra-cilis),
James’ clammyweed (Polanisia
jamesii) and fragile prickly pear cactus
(Opuntia fragilis).
The “Deserts of Illinois” remain
because of their dry nature, and the
sand is “forgiving.” The conservation of
these areas is critical to the endangered
species of Illinois.
—Randy Nÿboer, Illinois Endangered
Species Protection Board
Photos By Michael Jeffords
French’s shootingstar (Dodecatheon
frenchii)
(Photo courtesy Debra Nelson.)
Reeggall ffrriittiillllarryy ((Speeyyeerriia iidalliia))
(Photo courtesy Susan Dees.)
(Photo courtesy Michael Jeffords.)
(Photo courtesy Michael Jeffords.)
(Photo courtesy Joe McFarland.)
