June 23, 2023- Kankakee National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area, Illinois
Kankakee National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area, Kolar Savanna Unit
A quick stop here while traveling north from Sugar Creek Campground, Indiana to Chicago. It's managed as a savanna but it seems to lack the proper features. Too many trees and too little grass. I'm assuming that the ancestral state of this land was a savanna and they are trying to restore it. It was strange to see Pin Oak (a lowland species) growing side-by-side with Quercus velutina which generally grows in drier soil. I found what appeared to be a hybrid, Quercus x vaga.
