ILLINOIS NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY MANUAL 1 
Indeed, the beauty of many of our wild flowers has largely 
proved their undoing. A great part of the joy that comes from 
driving through the country or hiking through fields and woods 
would be missing if there were no wild flowers there to greet 
us. But being there, they have moved many thoughtless people 
to pick them, often in such numbers as to exterminate them 
from many areas they once dominated. 
Legal protection.—In an effort to protect the flowers which 
are rapidly disappearing at the hands of wanton pickers, the 
state has given them the protection of law. In 1923 the General 
Assembly of Illinois enacted a law for the conservation of 
certain wild plants. This act makes it unlawful to buy, sell 
or offer for sale any trillium, lady’s slipper, gentian, bloodroot, 
columbine or lotus. It also prohibits the picking of certain 
kinds of wild flowers without consent of the owner of the prop- 
erty on which they grow. Such a law, of course, is commendable, 
but lovers of nature as well as legislators must come to the 
rescue of our vanishing flowers; every effort should be made in 
schools and homes to teach others the advantages of conserving 
the beautiful, the interesting and the useful things of nature. 
PLANTS IN THEIR HOMES 
Plants, like human beings, are social and live in communi- 
ties. Occasionally on a sandy desert or rocky ledge a solitary 
plant may be found growing quite alone, but the vast majority 
are grouped together by similar needs and for the solution of 
their similar problems. Chief among their common needs are 
water, light, warmth and space in which to grow and reproduce. 
Within the limits of Illinois, rainfall is so abundant that most 
of its native plants usually have sufficient water, and the sun- 
shine gives an abundance of light during the spring and summer 
days. From April to October it is warm enough for plants to 
grow, and the soil is so rich that the space in which to develop 
becomes crowded, often overcrowded. 
Plant succession.—With the crowding, some plants are not 
able to compete with others and they disappear or are found in 
small numbers only. Plants that need an abundance of sunlight 
often crowd the surface so much that their own seedlings, unable 
to grow in the shade of the parents, die out and allow plants 
that endure shade very well to come in under the sun plants. 
The earlier communities thus effect changes resulting in their 
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