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Those Unruly, Vexing, Delightful Vines: Midwest Natives with Attitude and Impact
Yes! vines can be exasperatingly aggressive: it’s their nature. Even those that grow in shade are always seeking sunlight, and in their...
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GILLIAN HARRIS
Natural History Illustration & Writing
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Blue State
Blue barely describes a jay’s feathers: the soft ozone blue of its crest and mantle, the jewel-toned panes - lapis, sapphire, turquoise -...
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Milkweeds for Monarchs and Other Pollinators
Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosus) keeping company in an old field. A monarch butterfly...
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Native Viburnums: Form and Function in the Landscape
In a finely-timed spring ritual, a vibrant host of warblers, tanagers and other songbirds have ridden the wave of emerging caterpillars...
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Life Among the Red-cedars: Beautiful and Bizarre
As I strolled along my road this winter, I admiring a row of Eastern Red-cedars dark against the snowfield behind them, I startled a...
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Winter Sowing Bee at Fish Creek Preserve
On a frigid Friday in December, folks have gathered at Myriam Wood's Fish Creek Preserve to start the plants of future springs and...
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Fantastic "Cats" & Where to Find Them
. . . In your own backyard, as it happens, munching the foliage of native trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants. Many caterpillars eat a...
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How the Blue Jay Plants an Ecosystem
by Gillian Harris, Bloomington, Indiana One of the greatest pleasures of living in southern Indiana is wandering our oak-hickory forests...
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Skunk, Jacks & Dragons: The Curious Arum Family
Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) unfurling in April. As July moved into August of 2016, gargantuan Titan Arums were blooming all...
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Trilliums: Sweet Whites and "Aromatic" Reds
No spring shade garden is complete, in my estimation, without trilliums and their distinctive triads of leaves, sepals and petals. Our...
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Life in the Leaf Litter
Harbinger of Spring (Erigenia bulbosa), late February Look carefully at the faded leaves carpeting the forest floor in February and early...
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The Christmas Fern: a Fern for All Seasons
I take pleasure in the muted palette of the winter woods: the sepias and silvery-grays of tree bark, the faded ocher of leaves fallen or...
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