March 2023
There’s nothing like a blast of beautiful wildflower color after a long winter! Hear stories about our earliest spring wildflowers and their uses throughout history by Native Americans and early settlers as groceries, medicine, and even as love charms. Discover some of the ways these wildflowers inspired art, poetry, and literature. Enjoy beautiful photographs of Illinois’ wild and wonderful early bloomers and be inspired to add some of Illinois’ native wildflowers to your own garden.
Cindy Crosby is the author, compiler or contributor to more than 20 books. Her most recent book is “Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History” (Northwestern University Press, 2020). Her recent full-color book of photographs and essays is “Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit” with co-author Thomas Dean (2019). She is also the author of “The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction” (Northwestern University Press, 2017). Cindy earned her master’s degree in natural resources/environmental interpretation from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She is a Master Gardener, a steward for the Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum and a dragonfly steward at Nachusa Grasslands, a Nature Conservancy site with bison in Franklin Grove, IL. When she’s not out working in her garden, she speaks and teaches on natural history topics in the Chicago region. Cindy blogs each week at Tuesdays in the Tallgrass at WordPress, and you can find her classes and events at www.cindycrosby.com.
Our presenter asked that her presentation not be recorded, so we have a written recap instead.