Hey there! Today, we’re going on an exciting adventure with Emily, Robb, and Trevor. They’re on a mission to find one of the rarest plants in the world, the Kankakee Mallow, which grows only on Langham Island in the Kankakee River, Illinois. This plant is not just rare; it’s also incredibly beautiful!
Langham Island is a special place. It’s about twenty acres of land sticking out of the shallow Kankakee River. Back in 1872, a botanist named Reverend E. J. Hill discovered the Kankakee Mallow here. This island is the only place in the world where this plant grows naturally. Over the years, the island has been protected as a nature preserve, but the Kankakee Mallow has faced many challenges.
In the 1980s, scientists found that the Kankakee Mallow was disappearing because of invasive plants like the Chinese amur honeysuckle. These invasive species were taking over the island. To help the Mallow, the island underwent controlled burnings to remove the invaders. However, interest in saving the plant faded over time.
In 2014, local groups noticed the Mallow was in danger again. Passionate volunteers from organizations like Habitat 230 and Friends of Langham Island came together to save it. These groups believe that native plants and animals deserve to thrive in their natural habitats.
Emily, Robb, and Trevor are not just here to see the Mallow; they’re also helping out. They put up signs to mark the nature preserve and remove invasive plants like sweet white clover. This clover can spread quickly, so they pull it out by the roots to stop it from taking over.
They also cut down some honeysuckle, another invasive plant. By removing these invaders, they’re giving the Kankakee Mallow a chance to grow and flourish.
Finally, after all their hard work, they spot the Kankakee Mallow in bloom! It’s the first time in over ten years that anyone has seen it flowering on the island. Trevor explains that saving the Mallow is important because it’s unique and special, much like how people care about animals like polar bears and pandas.
Thanks to the volunteers’ efforts, the number of Mallows has grown from zero to about a thousand in just one year. This success shows how taking action can make a big difference.
The story of the Kankakee Mallow is one of hope and action. It reminds us that even places we might not think are special can be incredibly unique. By working together, we can protect and restore these environments.
Robb and Emily feel lucky to be among the first to see the Mallow bloom again. They hope that people everywhere will realize that there are special plants and animals waiting to be saved right in their own neighborhoods.
So, let’s take inspiration from this story and remember that we can all make a difference in protecting our natural world!
Explore your local area or school garden to identify various plants. Create a checklist of native and invasive species, similar to the Kankakee Mallow and the invasive honeysuckle. Take photos and note down characteristics of each plant you find.
Design a poster that highlights the importance of conserving rare plants like the Kankakee Mallow. Use drawings, facts, and slogans to encourage others to protect native species and their habitats.
Participate in a debate where you take on roles such as a botanist, a local resident, or a conservationist. Discuss the pros and cons of different conservation methods used to protect the Kankakee Mallow and other endangered species.
Write and perform a short play or skit about the journey of Emily, Robb, and Trevor in discovering and saving the Kankakee Mallow. Highlight the challenges they faced and the importance of teamwork in conservation efforts.
Take a virtual tour of Langham Island using online resources. Research the history of the island and the Kankakee Mallow. Present your findings to the class, focusing on the significance of preserving unique ecosystems.
**Sanitized Transcript:**
**Emily:** Hey! We’re in a boat with Robb!
**Rob:** I’m Robb.
**Emily:** And our friend, Trevor.
**Trevor:** Hello!
**Emily:** And we’re on our way to find one of the rarest plants in the world. It’s found on an island, Langham Island, in the Kankakee River.
**Rob:** What’s the plant?
**Emily:** Yeah.
**Rob:** It’s Iliamna remota, the Kankakee Mallow.
**Emily:** And it is one of the rarest plants in the world?
**Rob:** Yeah. And it’s quite beautiful, too.
**Emily:** Yeah?
**Rob:** Yeah.
**Emily:** And this is the first time in over a decade that somebody has seen this plant in bloom on this island, and we get to be some of the first.
**Rob:** And then also, all the viewers get to be that also.
**Emily:** Here we go!
**Rob:** Hooray!
**Emily:** It’ll take a while. We gotta row there.
[Brain Scoop theme song]
**Emily:** Langham Island is nearly twenty acres of bedrock protruding out of a shallow portion of the Kankakee River in Illinois. In 1872, Reverend E. J. Hill, the first botanist to ever survey the island, discovered the Kankakee Mallow, a species of plant endemic only to the island. This means that this twenty-acre island is the only place in the world where the Kankakee Mallow grows in the wild. Until the 1950s, the island was owned by the McGreuder family, and we have documentation of it being a fallow farm field in 1938. In 1966, the island became a nature preserve after the Kankakee River State Park was formed.
**Trevor:** It really wasn’t until John Shwegman and Bill Glass came here in the 1980s that they did a full floristic survey of this island.
**Emily:** What they found is that most of the island’s Kankakee Mallows had disappeared and were being replaced by invasive species, like the Chinese amur honeysuckle. The island was subject to a number of controlled burnings, and the species was saved, but public interest eventually waned. In 2014, a local group discovered that once again the Mallow was nearing extinction. So, a few groups of passionate volunteers have come together to help save the Kankakee Mallow, including Habitat 230 and the Friends of Langham Island.
**Rob:** We can’t stress enough the fact that Habitat 230 and Friends of Langham Island are groups of people who believe that native plants and animals deserve the right to live just like any other person.
**Emily:** Let’s go find the Kankakee Mallow! But first, we’re gonna put up some signs!
**Trevor:** So we’re gonna go down this hill here and put in a nature preserve sign. This island has been a nature preserve for quite a long time, but it has never really had official signage. We’ll put it down at the bottom of this hill here.
**Emily:** I’m gonna drive this post into the ground. For nature! Oh, it’s heavy! [clanking pole as it’s driven into the ground] Ah, that’s pretty good. It’s getting there. I’ll do one more. Ok. Well, we were not helping. There, I’m tightening some nuts. There.
**Trevor:** It’s perfect.
**Emily:** As the sun comes out.
**Emily:** We’re gonna pull some invasives.
**Rob:** Yup. This is Sweet white clover. It’s one of the nastier invasives. It’s a biennial, which means it lives for two years. In its first year, it’s very low to the ground, growing its roots, and in its second year, it shoots up tall flower spikes. Each plant can make thousands of seeds, so we’re pulling it out of the ground trying to get the whole root.
**Trevor:** Here we go, here’s a root.
**Rob:** Here’s a root.
**Emily:** There it is. Wow! So does it do that thing where it panics if you pull it up and don’t bend it?
**Rob:** Right.
**Emily:** And all of the energy goes from the root, and it’s like, “we gotta go!” and then it just disperses all the seeds right away?
**Rob:** That’s what I’ve been told, and that’s what I’m sticking with.
**Emily:** Alright. Let’s get this. So, this is what it looks like to pull a bunch of invasive clover. I’m gonna bend it. Man, this stuff gets everywhere. It’s gonna take forever, but we’ll do it.
**Rob:** Do you wanna cut some honeysuckle?
**Trevor:** Yeah, we could!
**Emily:** Yeah, this is a formidable tool.
**Rob:** So, cut one.
**Emily:** This is what we’re gonna go for, this one?
**Rob:** Yes, cut it.
[Cutting sounds]
**Emily:** Yeah!
**Trevor:** You gotta use the whole length, oh there you go. Boom!
**Rob:** That’s a good saw!
**Emily:** Yeah!
**Emily:** Wait. The whole point of this trip is to find the Kankakee Mallow, remember? This does remind me of when we were in Peru.
**Rob:** Well, that’s what’s cool about this island; the only trail is used by restorationists. It’s completely isolated from society. Not too many people have a boat, and the ones who don’t know to come here to see this, so it’s really untouched.
**Rob:** Oh, there we go.
**Trevor:** Here’s the first one.
**Emily:** [gasps]
**Rob:** Hey there.
**Emily:** There it is… that’s the Kankakee Mallow.
**Trevor:** That’s it. Right there, in bloom.
**Emily:** So this is the first time in over ten years that this flower has been seen in bloom?
**Trevor:** Yes, on the island.
**Emily:** And what is it about this flower that compelled you to take action in such a short amount of time?
**Trevor:** I felt it was something that we could potentially save because it’s an isolated area. It’s so unique that people would want to get behind it. Think of it like a polar bear or a panda; people get excited about those things, and the Mallow is definitely, in Illinois, kind of like that.
**Rob:** The distance from idea to action is so short here. We cleared about four or five acres of the twenty of the bigger invasive species. We were also able to employ a novel restoration technique to stimulate germination.
**Emily:** They were just waiting for someone to come by and clear everything out. So, how many Mallows are here right now?
**Trevor:** From zero observed plants to about a thousand in one year alone.
**Rob:** Let’s go look at all of them.
**Trevor:** Yeah!
**Emily:** Yeah!
**Emily:** [gasps]
**Rob:** So stately, look at this.
**Emily:** Wow! It’s majestic! Look at it! From extinction to seven feet tall. I think the Mallow is such a fantastic metaphor for learning and creating opportunities for things that didn’t have opportunities before.
**Rob:** And how to participate in our community, you know?
**Emily:** Right.
**Rob:** Getting rid of the things that don’t want to participate in our community. The Mallow, if you plant it elsewhere, can get a bit weedy, but here it knows how to participate. This is its home community.
**Emily:** We brought it back home.
**Rob:** That’s right.
**Emily:** What I love most about this story is that it’s a story of hope. It’s a story of action, about how a place that you may not think is incredibly unique is actually one of the most unique environments.
**Rob:** It’s urgent hope, too.
**Emily:** Yeah.
**Rob:** It’s not just hope you get to sit back and wait for someone else to work on.
**Emily:** Exactly. It’s hope that moves people to form groups of volunteers to come out here and restore this island.
**Rob:** I can’t believe I get to be one of the first people to see this thing in bloom in over ten years. I’m actually feeling a little emotional right now.
**Rob:** I only hope that people don’t see this as a faraway thing. There are genetic lines of plants waiting under the soil for you to come and save them right next door to you. There are special moments you can have wherever you are, and that’s really powerful.
**Emily:** Good job, guys.
**Rob:** Good job, Trevor.
**Emily:** I’m gonna wipe my tears on the leaf.
**Rob:** Just say you’re sweating.
**Emily:** Yeah, it’s so hot.
**Rob:** So humid!
**Emily:** Are you cutting onions in here or something?
[Brain Scoop theme music]
The Brain Scoop is made possible by the Field Museum and the Harris Family Foundation.
Kankakee – A river in the United States known for its diverse ecosystems and wildlife habitats. – The Kankakee River provides a crucial habitat for many species of fish and birds.
Mallow – A type of flowering plant that is often found in wetlands and can be important for local ecosystems. – The mallow plants in the wetland attract many pollinators, which help maintain the ecosystem’s health.
Invasive – Referring to species that are not native to an area and can cause harm to the local environment. – The invasive plant species spread quickly, outcompeting native plants and disrupting the habitat.
Plants – Living organisms that typically grow in soil and use sunlight to make their own food through photosynthesis. – The students learned about different types of plants and their roles in the ecosystem during their biology class.
Habitat – The natural environment where a plant or animal lives and grows. – The forest provides a habitat for many animals, including deer, foxes, and various bird species.
Nature – The physical world and everything in it, such as plants, animals, and landscapes, that are not made by humans. – Exploring nature helps us understand the importance of conserving our environment and protecting wildlife.
Preserve – An area of land set aside to protect and maintain natural resources and wildlife. – The nature preserve is home to several endangered species and offers educational tours for students.
Volunteers – People who offer their time and effort to help with conservation and environmental projects without being paid. – Volunteers gathered at the park to help plant trees and clean up the riverbank.
Bloom – The process of a plant producing flowers, which is often a sign of a healthy ecosystem. – In the spring, the wildflowers bloom, adding vibrant colors to the meadow.
Unique – Being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else, often used to describe special features in nature. – The unique rock formations in the desert attract geologists and tourists from around the world.
