Website Description
This website has descriptions, photographs, and range maps of many wildflowers in Illinois. These consist primarily of herbaceous flowering plants and a few small shrubs, whether native to Illinois or introduced from somewhere else. A wildflower, as defined here, is any flowering plant (excluding trees & large shrubs) that flourishes and reproduces on its own without any direct assistance (or very little assistance) from people and their activities. A wildflower may occur in natural areas of high quality, or it may occur at ecologically degraded sites that are disturbed by human-related activities. The flowers of these plants may be large and showy, or they may be small and insignificant.
At the present time, this website doesn't include the following kinds of plants:
• Trees & most shrubs
• Grasses, sedges, rushes, & similar plants
• Non-flowering vascular plants, such as ferns & horsetails
• Non-vascular plants, such as fungi, lichens, & mosses
• Many cultivated plants, such as agricultural crops and flowering horticultural plants
• Submerged aquatic plants
In the future, I may include some of the above groups of plants. New species of wildflowers are occasionally added and other improvements of this website occasionally occur. At the present time, all of the photographs at this website were taken by webmaster using a digital camera. The photographic location of these wildflowers is east-central Illinois, especially in the vicinity of Champaign-Urbana.
Over 3,000 species of vascular plants occur in the state of Illinois; this website provides information on several hundred of them. For each wildflower species, there is a description of its appearance, cultivation requirements, range and habitat, floral-faunal relationships, comparison with similar species, and other information. The descriptions and photographs can be useful in identifying wildflower species in the field by either educated laypersons or professionals. Hopefully, the photographs will reveal the quiet beauty of these wildflowers, including the smaller ones, which are often overlooked.
The wildflowers are divided into 5 large groups according to the general habitat in which they are most likely to occur:• Prairie Wildflowers. These species usually occur in prairies, meadows, and other sunny areas.
• Savanna Wildflowers. These species usually occur in savannas, thickets, woodland borders, and other partially sunny areas.
• Weedy Wildflowers. Unlike the wildflowers of the other groups, these species occur primarily in various disturbed or degraded sites where weedy plants normally flourish.
• Wetland Wildflowers. These species usually occur in marshes, fens, borders of ponds and rivers, and other wet habitats.
• Woodland Wildflowers. These species occur in woodlands where trees are the dominant vegetation.The weedy wildflowers are primarily introduced species, often annual or biennial plants, that flourish in moist to dry sunny areas with a history of disturbance. However, some weedy wildflowers occur in disturbed areas that are shady or wet, and sometimes they invade higher quality habitats with little disturbance. An attempt is made to define the meaning of a "weed" at the Weedy Wildflower website.
For each group, the wildflower species are listed alphabetically according to their scientific names. To access information about individual wildflowers in each group, click on the appropriate link on the right side of the Home Page.