20th Anniversary of the Lily Pool Restoration Celebration, part of Open House Chicago & the Conservancy’s Fall Into the Park events season. In honor of both the 20th Anniversary of the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool Restoration and the virtual component of Open House Chicago, we are celebrating the Lily Pool throughout October....
By: Sierra Chmela Most Illinoisans are familiar with at least one or two varieties of milkweed. These showy plants are the only food source for monarch butterfly larvae. Consequently, our state insect will only breed near a supply of milkweed! In July, we posted about the three...
By: Sierra Chmela Throughout the country, fire is a challenge many plants have evolved to deal with and even come to rely on. Though we often hear of the wildfires raging out west, fire has been an integral part of midwestern ecosystems for thousands of years. Many...
If you’ve been reading our blog series on the Lily Pool, you’ll recall that Caldwell’s original design of the Lily Pool lasted less than a decade before becoming the Lincoln Park Zoo’s bird habitat. While the site served a useful purpose and even hosted concerts,...
[caption id="attachment_4900" align="alignleft" width="225"] Great Blue Heron in the Lily Pool[/caption] The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool is an oasis, a refuge from the concrete city, both for the people of Chicago and for the animals that call it home. Every year in the spring and the fall,...
The Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanium) draws large crowds and media coverage, and its blooming is one of the most exciting and anticipated events at the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The scientific name translates literally to giant, misshapen phallus. In its native Sumatra, it is termed ‘Bunga Bangkai’,...
