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 eff"ort 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 sumrner 

 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 ot 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 



