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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780810135475 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Northwestern University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/20/2017 |
| Pages: | 144 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.50(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Tallgrass Prairie
An Introduction
By Cindy Crosby
Northwestern University Press
Copyright © 2017 Cindy CrosbyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8101-3547-5
CHAPTER 1
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.
— EMILY DICKINSON
What Is a Tallgrass Prairie?
The crows sing the sun up over the horizon at Nachusa Grasslands. I can hear the crickets in the big bluestem and smell the wetness of damp earth in the air from the morning mist. I've thrown my tent into a small section of the prairie where the staff often camp because I want to experience the life of the prairie at night. Why? It's a side of the prairie's personality I don't see much. If I want to "know" prairie, I need to get to know it after dark.
Prairies are like people. Each one has similar characteristics, but each one is also as unique as a snowflake. When we spend time on different prairies, we discover they all have their own quirks, individuality, and charm.
The Schulenberg Prairie at the Morton Arboretum, where I'm a steward supervisor, tends to be a busy prairie. I can find solitude out there — if I look for it — but it is a prairie built for visitation. It's also an old soul, as reconstructed prairies go. Plans for it were initiated in 1962. According to some sources, it's the fourth oldest planted prairie in the United States. This patch of tallgrass, together with its adjacent savanna and wetlands, hosts more than five hundred species.
Nachusa Grasslands is a place where you can lose yourself in the tallgrass and enjoy a day of solitude. Hundreds of acres stretch in every direction, broken up by farms and rural homes but still loosely stitched together like a patchwork quilt. It offers more than 750 plant species, 180 bird species that use the preserve, and perhaps the most intriguing species of all: bison. The site is an amazing mosaic of prairie, savanna, wetland, and fen.
Although they differ, both the Schulenberg Prairie and Nachusa Grasslands are unmistakably prairie. Why?
The word "prairie" comes from the French and means "meadow." However, while a tallgrass prairie may look similar to a meadow to the untrained eye, it is quite different. One difference is its suite of plants.
Just as you'd expect that most people have two eyes and a nose, prairies come with certain characteristics. Grasses dominate tallgrass prairies. Some type of grass is almost always present. Depending on where your tallgrass prairie is located, the grass type might be one or more of the following:
Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii)
Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)
Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans)
Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis)
Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)
And, many more. Not all prairies will have all these grasses. Some places may have one or more of these grasses and yet not be a prairie. But these grasses are good indicators. Begin to know these five grasses and you will develop good radar for "seeing" prairie.
Prairies are often characterized by an absence of trees. They may have a few dotting the tallgrass. Such trees might commonly include bur oaks and shagbark hickory. Both have very tough bark that can resist fire, previously sparked by lightning or set by Native Americans and kindled today from prescribed burns. We'll talk about those in a later chapter.
A prairie often has certain forbs. A forb is simply a flowering plant that doesn't belong to the grass family. (Yes, grasses bloom too!) Forbs are also herbaceous. This means the plant dies back at the end of the growing season. Most forbs do not leave woody stems and branches behind that will come back to life in the spring. They will grow again from the roots up.
Some signature forbs for tallgrass prairie include the following:
Compass plant (Silphium laciniatum)
Lead plant (Amorpha canescens)
Pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida)
Prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum)
Prairie violet (Viola pedatifida)
Rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium)
Shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia)
White wild indigo (Baptisia alba)
There are many more. You might find pale purple coneflowers in a vacant lot, or you might notice shooting stars growing on the edges of a woodland. If you see any of these forbs, your tallgrass prairie antennae should tingle. They are indicators that prairie may be — or may once have been — around.
In the Beginning
If you are intrigued by the history of prairie and delve more deeply into the literature about it, you will run across references to a biome. This term refers to groups of animals and plants that are adapted to a specific region. A grassland biome would be different than a desert biome. Grasslands are no cookie-cutter landscapes, either! Think of the grasslands in Africa, or South America, or even the grasslands in Colorado. Tallgrass prairie is a distinct type of grassland.
Why, you might ask, is it called "tallgrass prairie"? In general, the word "tallgrass" refers to the difference between the height of the prairie in the Midwest compared to the mixed-grass prairie and shortgrass prairie of the middle and western Great Plains. In the simplest terms, rain shadow from the Rocky Mountains causes drier conditions in the Great Plains. The rain shadow killed the former forests that had existed before the rise of the Rockies.
The plant varieties you see are shorter as you travel west, and different species may dominate in mixed-grass and shortgrass prairies than in our tallgrass prairie. Tallgrass prairie is also found within a certain geographic range in the United States and Canada, where the rainfall is more plentiful. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notes that "the original tallgrass prairie ... extended from western Indiana to the eastern part of Kansas, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota and south to Oklahoma and Texas."
Almost all the tallgrass prairie is gone. In Illinois, where I live, we once had more than twenty-two million acres of tallgrass prairie. Fewer than three thousand acres of original, high quality tallgrass remains; most of it in scattered places and in small parcels. Replanted prairies and restorations are improving those numbers today, but are nowhere near the acreage that we once had.
Again — why, you may wonder, is it called "tallgrass?" In Illinois, normal precipitation ranges from about twenty-five to forty inches each year. Our grass height is in direct response to this amount of precipitation. But the word "tallgrass" itself can be deceptive. In a drought year, the tallgrass may be waist high for an average-size adult. In a wet year, some of the lush tallgrass will tower over my five-foot, seven-inch frame. Grasses and forbs also vary in size, depending on the conditions of the soil.
All that grass! How did grasslands begin, anyway?
Glaciers once moved slowly across the Midwest and crushed the rocks and minerals into a fine, flour-like soil substance we call loess. This material was the perfect medium for grasses to flourish. Prairie plants with extensive root systems, some roots plunging to more than fifteen feet, were better adapted to survive periodic droughts.
That vast, deep, thick network of roots would protect the prairie sod against large-scale agriculture for a long time — until a farming implement was invented that could cut into the sod and turn it over. "In grassland, above-ground attacks are tolerated, but destruction of the roots is destruction of the place," Richard Manning, author of Grassland, writes. After the John Deere plow tore through the rich prairie soil, its destiny was sealed.
Why does the origin of the prairie matter, anyway? I like this thought from Lonnie Morris, a longtime prairie steward in the Chicago region.
One of the important things I learned about prairie came from understanding, at least a little, the early origins of the landscape, the scraping glaciers, cool temperatures, and the original boreal forests that receded as temperatures warmed, creating an opportunity for a grassland. The long view is important, especially now when one of the pressures we face is climate change.
We have to know where we've come from to know where we're going. For those of us who are Illinois residents or for other Midwesterners, this means understanding the prairie's history.
After all, it is the landscape we call home.
Prairie Types
In the Midwest, there are several different types of tallgrass prairie. Yep, there's more than just one. They include black soil prairies, dolomite prairies, sand prairies, hill prairies, gravel prairies, and shrub prairies. Some naturalists call the sand and hill prairies "dry prairies" because they are quick to drain; you'll also hear the phrase "wet prairies" for areas that hold water over a period of time.
You may find more than one type of prairie at a single location, especially if it is a large prairie. When the Schulenberg Prairie was reconstructed, it was primarily designated as a black soil prairie. But other soils were brought into locations on its one hundred acres to try to grow more diverse plants found in other prairie types. A larger prairie might have a mosaic of naturally occurring habitats that invite multiple prairie types to be restored or established.
Dolomite Prairies
Some prairies, like the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie stretching across nineteen thousand acres just north of Wilmington, Illinois, are partially underlain by a limestone high in dolomite. These dolomite prairies have unique plants and insects not usually found in other prairie types. The federally endangered Hines emerald dragonfly is found on the 285-acre Lockport Prairie Nature Preserve in Lockport, Illinois, where plants such as the federally endangered leafy prairie clover (Dalea foliosa) and federally threatened lakeside daisy (Tetraneuris herbacea) grow.
Wet Prairies
Water is an agent of change. Many prairies have streams, ponds, or other adjacent wetland areas. This water source serves as a catalyst for a whole new group of plants, animals, birds, and insects that may colonize those portions of the prairie. Wet prairies might include streamside prairie plantings or restorations, or they may be particular areas of a prairie with saturated soil. These soils might look different — from gravel to peat — depending on the location. The federally threatened eastern prairie fringed orchid (Platanthera leucophaea) might be found on a wetter prairie. A northern pintail, which is a type of duck, might rest on a prairie pond during migration.
As of this writing, the hydrology of many prairie restorations is changing as prairie managers break up drain tiles. The drain tiles, usually made of clay (and later, other materials), were once valued because they stabilized wet areas for farming — a boon to Illinois agriculture. However, as the way we value land changes, so does the way we care for it. Some prairie managers believe the drain tiles keep the land from expressing its original intention. In other words, when we break up the drain tiles, we can move toward returning land to its original hydrology, which may mean more wet prairies that are restored from tiled agricultural fields.
Mesic Prairies
My friend John Heneghan tells me that when he first started as a steward on the Illinois tallgrass prairie, he read books to try to learn more about what he was caring for. A term that kept confusing him was "mesic." As you read about prairie, you'll run across this word as well. What does it mean?
Mesic soil is earth that is well drained and moderately moist; thus, a "mesic prairie" is one that is moderately or well drained, according to The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Prairie Restoration in the Upper Midwest. Mesic soil contrasts with hydric soil, which is saturated with water and lacks oxygen. On a mesic prairie, there is adequate moisture (but not too much) for growing prairie plants. Mesic prairies are profuse with grasses and forbs. As Doug Ladd tells us in Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers, mesic prairies were quickly converted to cropland. All that rich soil! Today, mesic prairies are among our most threatened types of prairies.
Savanna
Some prairie grasses and forbs are also found in savannas. What is a savanna and how is it distinct from a woods or a forest? It's a little complicated. A savanna is not a transition zone between woodland and prairie; it's a distinct ecosystem typically defined as having from 10 to 50 percent tree canopy cover. In the Midwest, oak trees dominate savannas.
Savannas are made up of species often found in prairies and woodlands (an oak savanna is an example); however, they also have their own species list. Savannas are usually managed with prescribed burns, just as prairies are, to keep the canopies open. Keep in mind that a savanna is not a prairie type; you may just see some familiar prairie plants and animals in savannas. One of the best-known oak savannas is the Pleasant Valley Conservancy State Natural Area in southern Wisconsin.
* * *
That's a lot of prairie types, isn't it? Plus savanna! And there are more types, depending on how you slice and dice the definitions. For further exploration, you might investigate hill prairies, sand prairies, shrub prairies, and dry prairies. The diversity of prairie types — and the diversity of having many unusual landscapes in the world — contributes to the amazing diversity of our planet, with its wide array of animals, plants, insects, birds, and other life forms.
This might be a good place to put down the book. Yes, you heard that right.
You can learn all about types of prairies from books like this, or websites, or classes. But the best way to understand what a prairie is and isn't, is to spend time in the tallgrass and develop a relationship with it. As you absorb the sounds, tastes, and smells of the prairie — and see it in all four seasons — you'll recognize the difference between tallgrass prairie and an old farm field. You'll also begin to see the differences between a savanna and a prairie, or the mesic prairie and a hill prairie.
Relationships take time. Why not get started now? I'll be waiting for you when you get back, and then we can continue our journey.
CHAPTER 2As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of winestains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.
— WILLA CATHER, MY ANTONIA
Don't Know Much about History: People and the Prairie
I love stories. Whether fact or fiction, they give us context for understanding the bigger questions about who we are, where we are going, and what it all means. Stories open up new ways of understanding. They help us envision a future, in light of the past.
The story of the tallgrass prairie is a story of grasslands whose most volatile chapters have been written over the past two hundred years or so. Until then, the tallgrass prairie was largely shaped by climate, fires set by Native Americans or sparked by lightning, and grazing animals. It was a vast landscape. But all of that was about to change.
Imagine you are heading west from your home in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or Virginia. You reach what is now western Indiana and suddenly the woodlands open into vast expanses of prairie. Pretty amazing landscape, right?
Well, maybe not. Many of the first white settlers to see the prairie weren't particularly impressed. If you come from the East, where woodlands provide materials for heat, cooking, and construction, the prairie might not seem to offer much. Many of the first settlers were from Europe, and their nostalgia was more tipped toward trees than grasslands.
When James Monroe, later our fifth president, toured the west in 1785, he noted pragmatically and, perhaps, without much imagination:
A great part of the territory is miserably poor, especially that near Lake Michigan, and that upon the Illinois consists of plains which have not had, by appearance, and will not have a single bush on them for ages.
Others traveling through the region responded differently. In her 1840 book, ASummer Journey in the West, Eliza Steele writes of her first view of the landscape of northern Illinois:
I started with surprise and delight. I was in the midst of a prairie! A world of grass and flowers stretched around me, rising and falling in gentle undulations, as if an enchanter had struck the ocean swell, and it was at rest forever.
Native Americans, the original settlers on the tallgrass prairie, doubtless saw it differently than Eliza Steele and James Monroe did. To them, the prairie was a grocery store, full of edible plants that could be used as seasonings or made into beverages, or their seeds eaten as a snack. By burning the prairie intentionally, wild game could be driven into a chosen location for hunting. The new growth that followed attracted mammals such as bison and elk, also filling the Native American "pantry." Fire was also used to keep the land healthy.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Tallgrass Prairie by Cindy Crosby. Copyright © 2017 Cindy Crosby. Excerpted by permission of Northwestern University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
IntroductionChapter OneWhat is a Tallgrass Prairie?Chapter TwoDon’t Know Much About History: People and the PrairieChapter ThreeWhy Should I Care About the Tallgrass Prairie? Chapter FourThe Name Game Chapter FiveThey Used it for What? Prairie EthnobotanyChapter SixBurning Love: Managing the Tallgrass Prairie Chapter SevenSeeds of Change Chapter EightPrairie Critters Chapter NineExperiencing the Tallgrass Prairie Chapter TenRespecting the Tallgrass Prairie Chapter ElevenStaying Comfortable on the Tallgrass Prairie Chapter TwelvePlanting Prairie at Home EpilogueShare the Love Appendixes- Beginner’s Glossary of Prairie Terms
- For Further Discovery