Journey With Nature

Neither flashy nor rare, the spicebush is a popular native plant with sweet yellow flowers and a delightful fragrance. Whether planted in your backyard or found in the wild, this bush brightens any landscape.

Swamp Angel Nature Preserve ranks as one of the most outstanding natural areas in all of northeastern Indiana. Despite its name, this preserve is much more than a swamp.

Buckthorn is the perfect example of how, in our interconnected natural world, one action or one species affects another in sometimes unexpected ways.

Located in a working class neighborhood of Gary in Lake County, Ivanhoe had originally been plotted into individual lots for residential development. The Nature Conservancy began acquiring these lots in the mid-1980's through tax auctions and donations. Today the preserve totals more than a hundred acres.

Last week Journey with Nature featured the Devil’s walking stick, a thorny plant that redeems itself with showy gorgeous blooms. This week's segment discusses the other walking stick found in Indiana - the slow moving, camouflaging insect know as the Walkingstick.

Aralia spinosa is known by many things - prickly ash, Hercule's club, Angelica tree, toothache bush - but is widely known as the Devil’s walking stick.

Boaters despise them. Recreationists curse them. Conservationists wish to rid them from our waters. What is the object of so much hostility? The tiny, but havoc-wreaking zebra mussel.

Nothing spoils a good hike in the woods like finding an eight-legged bloodsucker firmly attached to your body. Unfortunately those tiny arachnids known as ticks stick around from spring through all summer long.

Crayfish are known by many names: crawfish, crawdad or mudbugs just to name a few. Resembling miniature lobsters, these freshwater crustaceans are found in Indiana's lakes, rivers and streams.

Southeastern Indiana has some of the flattest terrain in the state; so much that the main natural community type is known as flatwoods. Chelsea Flatwoods in Jefferson County is the largest and most diverse example of this natural community in the entire state. It is also the wettest.

Some fish don't belong in Indiana waters and the species collectively known as Asian carp are just a few of those. Asian carp - which include the bighead carp and silver carp - are native to China and Southeast Asia.

It's hard to miss the Black-Eyed Susan wildflower. Not only is it impressively tall with a full height up to three feet and bears large, colorful blooms, it is one of the most common wildflowers found throughout Indiana and the rest of the United States.

Though it may not look like much of a nature preserve, Saunders Woods in Gibson County is a fascinating piece of Indiana's natural history.

Shakespeare once wrote "that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." He never encountered the not-so-sweet rose, Mutliflora Rose. This non-native species is giving its namesake a foul aroma in Indiana.

Though its not the kind of cucumber you can pickle, the cucumber magnolia is a pretty and native tree to the Hoosier state.