We’re not done with pictures from southwest Missouri, and I’ve already gone out photographing five times since my return to Austin, but let’s take a first look at the vegetation in northeastern Illinois. In particular, here are two scenes from along a trail in Illinois Beach State Park in Zion, on the shore of Lake Michigan. Our guide on June 6 was Melissa of Melissa Blue Fine Art, who draws inspiration for some of her paintings from the scenery and flora in Lake County, Illinois. Of the first image, which shows the Dead River, she later wrote that the plants include “yellow water lily, chairmaker’s rush and Anemone canadensis. We call the lily spatterdock here, Nuphar luteum. The rush is Scirpus americanus. Every year the river looks a little bit different, with different plants abundant some years and absent others. These 3 are always present, though.” For more on the sometimes deadly Dead River, you can read a brief but interesting article.

The second photograph, taken from a boardwalk, shows the fluffy seed heads of Eriophorum angustifolium, called cotton grass even though it’s a sedge and not a grass.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman