It can be hard to imagine while driving through Illinois' seemingly endless expanse of subdivisions, office parks and farms, but the state still harbors some dramatic natural landscapes that have hardly been touched by human civilization. Though they're little known, some of these remnants of thousands of years of natural history are powerfully moving sights.
A new exhibit at the Chicago Botanic Garden samples 17 of these timeless landscapes, primarily through photographs but also through moss and other live plants, scraps of tree bark, a stuffed wild turkey and other objects. Each of the natural habitats depicted in "Wilds of Illinois," which opened last week and runs through Nov. 14, is shown as a 21-square-foot photo panel, with smaller photos and other objects supplementing the big picture.
The exhibit is an effort "to raise awareness of the biological diversity of the state," says Michael Jeffords, one of two photographers whose work is the basis of the exhibit, which takes a decidedly different angle than the word "wilds" might lead some to expect.
Jeffords, an Illinois Natural History Survey entomologist, points out that "I'm not a market-driven photographer going out to get the greeting-card shots of cougars and bobcats. I'm a biologist taking pictures of what I actually see in these natural areas."
What people will see in his photos, he explains, is what they'll see for themselves if they are moved by the exhibit to go check out the natural settings for real. "It's not frustrating to go there after you've seen our pictures, because what is there is what you have already seen depicted artistically," Jeffords says.
Instead of bobcats and other big animals that visitors rarely spot on their own, Jeffords and fellow photographer Susan Post capture frogs and insects, stones and grasslands. Some of the pictures are extreme close-ups of such things as lichens on rocks, while others offer long views of muscular oaks spreading against a cloud-streaked sky.
Post raises half a million galerucella beetles a year for the state Natural History Survey. (The beetles are known to feast on purple loosestrife, an invasive weed that has taken over many wet parts of the native landscape.) She and Jeffords, her husband, have wandered through many of the remnants of Illinois' native landscape that still exist; they have make the treks as ecological professionals and for fun. The often-sumptuous photos they have taken of rock ledges, bogs, dunes and other subtle but enchanting natural landscapes in Illinois were the core of a 1995 book called "Illinois Wilds," put out by Phoenix Publishing in Urbana.
"When you drive into the state, you see signs saying `Welcome to Illinois,' and they show soybeans and the Chicago skyline," Jeffords says. "But that's not all there is in Illinois. This is one of the more bio-diverse places on the North American continent. Illinois has 54,000 species (of plants and animals) in it, and a good percentage of them live in these little remnants that haven't been changed."
"Wilds of Illinois" runs through Nov. 14 at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The garden is at 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe. There is no admission charge, but the cost to park a car at the garden is $7. For more information, call 847-835-5440.