(CAPITOL CITY NOW) – When you hear the words “endangered species,” you probably think of animals. But the term applies to plants, too.
From the Illinois Natural History Survey, scientist Brian Charles studies this for a living – and has completed an exhaustive study. “We have the native version of things you might cook with, like wild tarragon (and) highbush blueberry, which is the one that gets mostly used commercially,” said Charles, “and we also have the large and small cranberry. We have about 2200 native plant species in Illinois.”
331 of those are considered threatened and / or endangered.
Charles says Illinois environment stands to miss out on a lot.
“Plants, in a lot of cases, are doing nutrient cycling,” Charles continued. “They are in many cases essential for pollinator survival. We can lose more species of bees. Potentially, animals might be forced to rely on different sources of food.”
Charles says the top two threats to the native plants are development and the emergence of invasive species were the top two threats.
