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Illinois Botanizer This page features the natural history of flora and fauna in Illinois. Emphasis is on remnant natural communities. Photography by Christopher David Benda.

I monitored one of my favorite plant species this week, kidneyleaf mud plantain, Heteranthera reniformis. This state end...
09/11/2026

I monitored one of my favorite plant species this week, kidneyleaf mud plantain, Heteranthera reniformis. This state endangered species had not been seen in Illinois for over 20 years when I started my comprehensive review of the species in the state in 2021. Since then, we have confirmed it as extant at two historical locations and remarkably have encountered it at a nine additional sites.
This is an annual that thrives in wet and muddy areas that includes habitat like lake and pond margins, shallow swamps, and even muddy ruts on dirt roads caused by off-road vehicle traffic. It has extremely reniform (kidney-shaped) leaves and can be distinguished from the rather uncommon mud plantain Heteranthera missouriensis by its white flowers versus purple.

I love the mudflat/pond margin plant community. There are many neat species that occupy this niche and among my favorite...
09/10/2026

I love the mudflat/pond margin plant community. There are many neat species that occupy this niche and among my favorites is Bacopa rotundifolia, called water hyssop. I saw some exemplary specimens in full glorious bloom today along the edge of Dutchmans Lake in Johnson County, Illinois. You can see how it gets the name “rotundifolia” because of the round foliage!

Downy Lobelia, Lobelia puberula, is a wonderful native with gorgeous purple flowers that is currently blooming in southe...
08/31/2026

Downy Lobelia, Lobelia puberula, is a wonderful native with gorgeous purple flowers that is currently blooming in southern Illinois.
Lobelia flowers are resupinate, meaning that as the flowers develop, they twist 180 degrees resulting in flowers that are upside down. This greatly aids successful pollination.
This species is along the northern edge of its range in southern Illinois and while it is not rare, it only occurs in a handful of counties in the state.

Here are two seldom seen plants I observed in southern Pope County this week. They are not closely related, but they bot...
08/29/2026

Here are two seldom seen plants I observed in southern Pope County this week. They are not closely related, but they both reproduce using spores instead of seeds.
First 4 photos are Ribbonwort, Pallavincinia lyellii, a type of simple thalloid liverwort. It is a dioecious species and this one is a female displaying archegonia along the midvein of thallus (leaf).
The last 3 photos are meadow spikemoss, Selaginella apoda, which is not a moss, but instead is a lycophyte, a lineage more closely related to ferns than mosses.
Both are neat plants to see in southern Illinois if one looks closely.

Which grass is this? Witchgrass! Which Witchgrass? Dichanthelium ravenelii of course! It might take a botanist to fall i...
08/27/2026

Which grass is this? Witchgrass! Which Witchgrass? Dichanthelium ravenelii of course!
It might take a botanist to fall in love with a grass, as they are not showy and often difficult to ID. But I must admit, I’m currently having a love affair with Dichanthelium ravenelii. It is listed as state endangered, with 7 documented occurrences across southern Illinois as extant, with 3 of those occurrences found in the last 4 years.
Dichanthelium species are notoriously difficult to identify, but this one is distinct by having large spikelets (over 3mm), hairy foliage, and leaves typically clustered near the tip of the stems.

Some students from the summer flora class wanted to see Cretaceous Hills Ecological Area in southern Pope County so we v...
08/24/2026

Some students from the summer flora class wanted to see Cretaceous Hills Ecological Area in southern Pope County so we visited today and recorded 231 species of vascular plants, including 8 state listed species!
1. Obligatory group photo
2. Rhexia mariana, dull meadow beauty
3. Sagittaria australis, longbeak arrowhead
4. Selaginella apoda, spikemoss
5. Scirpus polyphyllus, leafy bullrush
6. Diphasiastrum digitatum, ground pine
7. Thelypteris noveboracensis, New York fern
8. Isotria verticillata, large whorled pogonia orchid
9. Bartonia paniculata, screw stem
10. Osmundastrum cinnamomeum, cinnamon fern

The neat thing about ferns is that most of them are native! However, there are few non-native species that occur in the ...
08/23/2026

The neat thing about ferns is that most of them are native! However, there are few non-native species that occur in the wild in southern Illinois and this is one seems to be popping up more and more.
This is Macrothelypteris torresiana and it is native to Asia and Africa. In the 2014 edition of Vascular Flora of Illinois Mohlenbrock lists it as very rare in Johnson County. Now it can be found across southern Illinois.

I often tell people that most plant species that are rare in Illinois are common somewhere else. The Illinois landscape ...
08/21/2026

I often tell people that most plant species that are rare in Illinois are common somewhere else. The Illinois landscape is relatively young geologically speaking and so we have very few endemic species. That being said Actaea rubifolia, called Appalachian Bugbane, is rare in Illinois, only occurring in a few counties in the southernmost part of the state and is rare across its entire range.
The flowers look similar to black cohosh, Actaea racemosa, but the leaves do not, as black cohosh leaves are much more dissected. Plus that species curiously does not occur in southern Illinois anyway.
Actaea rubifolia populations mostly occur in Illinois and Tennessee, with additional populations in a few counties in Kentucky, Indiana, and Virginia. In Illinois, the species occurs at the bases of slopes in moist, rocky, forested ravines, primarily in Pope and Hardin counties.

In between rare plant monitoring with volunteers, I visited two iconic Hardin County sites today, Cave-in-Rock State Par...
08/21/2026

In between rare plant monitoring with volunteers, I visited two iconic Hardin County sites today, Cave-in-Rock State Park along the Ohio River and Iron Furnace near Big Creek. It’s a long drive out there from Carbondale, but it’s worth it and if you go during the week this time of year, you can enjoy the sites all by yourself.

I was gifted these beautiful paintings by Laura Majorie Miller, an Illinois Master Naturalist and community listener in ...
08/20/2026

I was gifted these beautiful paintings by Laura Majorie Miller, an Illinois Master Naturalist and community listener in my summer flora class at Southern Illinois University. She made one painting after each class.
I love how she labeled them with scientific names and focused on some more subtle features than just the flowers. The paintbrush-like pawpaw bud, choosing the rather obscure rush Juncus effusus, the succulence of the fameflower, the elegance of the spiderwort, the hairiness of the hawkweed leaves complete with notches in the yellow ray flowers, and the floating purple fragrance of American pennyroyal.

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