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Visitors Find Summer Play ground Is a Place of Beauty By Mrs. H. F. Horton Glencoe Garden Club Cacti blossoming yellow on the sands and pink orchids in the moors! These and many other floral delights will greet the visitor to the new Dunes Park of Illinois during the remainder of the summer and early fall. Here is a reproduction on a slightly smaller scale of the Indiana dunes which some European scientists have compared in natural interest to some of our most wonderful national parks. On the upland meadows is an ever lasting panorama of color and variety of species: violets, golden ragwort, blue-eyed grass, shooting star, prairie phlox, painted cup, catch-fly, spider worth, blazing star. All these mingle with a lush growth of meadow grasses. Moderately elevated above the meadows on the sandy ridges grow coreopsis, rivalling that of our gar dens, lupine, New Jersey tea, orange butterfly weed, mints, and wild roses. Any of these flowers and the hun dreds of other species might be found in other localities but here they have come together under difficult conditions in a struggle for existence, making seemingly a “last stand be fore extinction.” Bed of Ancient Lake Not only is Dunes Park of Illinois of absorbing interest to the botanist but to the geologist as well. It is all in the bed of ancient Lake Chi cago, that lake left ages ago by the last of the glaciers. This was larger than Lake Michigan and drained through a ‘sag to the Mississippi valley. As you go east from Sheridan road to Dunes Park, you descend a little hill just before reaching the railroad. This is Glenwood beach, the ancient bank of old Lake Chicago. Before you lies a meadow-like expanse, boggy in places. Waving in a sea of green are the flowers and plants of the prairie and slough. At the farther side of the meadow, is a succession of ridges and swales nearly parallel to the lake, the permanent dunes. These have a scattered growth of black oak and an extraordinary association of plants from east and west, north and south. Beyond these, are dunes with a different and scantier vegetation— dunes in the process of settling down in the world and assuming a per manent character; finally the moving dunes with a few plants of entirely new character, beginning the long process of binding and holding the sands, then the broad sandy beach and finally the lake. Dead River To the south of the road is Dead River, which does very poor work of drainage but offers a ribbon of reflected sky and clouds bordered by the black-green bulrushes and by meadows of white anemone and wild iris. On the dunes above bloom puc soon, the ivory flowering spurge and roses. The mouth of the river is often partly filled with sand as it sends its sluggish stream into Lake Michigan. Following the river and beyond to ward the south for at least a mile is a conifer growth; the seeds of these pines were sown by the late Robert Douglas of Waukegan, a Lake county pioneer, over sixty years ago. They now stand in natural beauty, per fectly acclimated, Austrian, Scotch, pitch and perhaps a few Table Moun tain pines. These look like a natur al forest and are seen at their best from the lake shore when a strong northeastern is blowing. The high and dry ridges are covered with the lustrous leaves of the bearberry and the prostrate sprays of the Wauke gan juniper. This is one of the most beautiful evergreens, silvery green with whitish berries now but turning in winter to a purple. This has been brought to our homes and is a very successful feature in landscape gar dening. Study Dune Formation After seeing the pines from the lake and walking toward the north, a study may be made of dune forma tion. Beyond the storm beach, which in some places is 200 feet wide, comes the beach association where there is a very scant vegetation of sea-rocket, beach pea and wormwood. Then comes the fore-dune adding more plants, such as the binding grasses, sand, reed and marram, the sand cherry and the furry willows. As you go away from the lake, you pass through other associations of plants. In the cottonwood zone, the Balm of Gilead trees, willows and dogwood have been able to withstand the sand drifts, and, while buried deep, keep their heads above the encroaching tide. Further in are the black oaks, with their characteristic association of plants. Between the sand ridges, lie the swales. Here thrive the orch ids, grass of Parnassus, the royal and marsh-shield ferns and other beg loving species. Some mention must be made of Dunes Park’s unusual plants. The sea rocket and beach pea are maritime but flourish here as does the cactus of the southwest. The alpine and far-north bearberry, called Kinnikin nik in Colorado, grows and bears its pink flowers in the fall. Some plants are parasitic, the violet broom-tape found under the pines, the lemon yellow gerardia and the painted cup, gaining their sustenance from the roots of other plants. In the fall, the fringed gentian blooms, rivalling the blue of the June sky. One family, living within an hour's distance from the dunes, has found for many years much pleasure and profit in week-end trips to that re gion. Like any other good friend, the moors should be cultivated in all seasons and weathers. Even in the sub-zero days, they have walked next the gray lake on the frozen beach, piled high with white ice and have found warmth by a fire beneath the pines. They have pursued rare butter flies and moths during the years and have made the acquaintance of a “beetle-man” hunting his own spe cimens under fallen logs and cacti. Birds to Be Identified There are birds to be identified and only the other day, a new one pre sented itself. These lovers of the dunes have slept under the stars. There was ample compensation for any discomfort when they saw, be tween weeps, the moon rise and set, stormy Orion sweep up the sky, the morning star so large it made a silver path in the lake the sun rise and stain the lake with gold. Not all the wonders are on the other side of the world, not all treasures are at the rainbow’s end.
Newspaper Details
Wilmette Life
Wilmette, Illinois, US
Thu, Aug 22, 1935
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Sonya S.
USA 18 Feb 2026
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