Considering the Lilies

•May 1, 2024•

by Janet Roney

“That’s a clump of big bluestem grass over there in the road ditch by the goldenrod,” said Jennie Collier, who was on our county history tour in the late 1960s.   

“What? Bluestem! I thought it all was plowed up long ago!”  

“Oh, no,” she said. “It’s still here if you know where to look. It still grows in the un-mown road side ditches, along railroads, and in the dredge ditches in Eagle Pond. You can find it everywhere.” 

Jennie’s comment opened a whole new world to me. I knew that many of our prairie wild flowers, the “lilies of the field”, were still here, but big bluestem? Once I knew what it looked like, I began seeing it everywhere. Big bluestem was the dominant grass that grew in the native prairie that covered central Illinois.  

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