The Forest-Prairie Dance  

Left alone, undisturbed land in Eastern America reverts back to forest and remains so -- unless humans or a natural catastrophe interferes. For that reason -- up until now -- the Highland Nature Sanctuary has been concentrating on the native Eastern landscape -- re-uniting broken fragments of the once grand Eastern Temperate Forest . Yet, in Ohio, and across the Eastern continent, forest as a dominant community has not always been the case. When it comes to nature, there is no such thing as forever.

 Despite the immensity of the Great Forest when the Europeans settled America, they also came across less common communities co-existing among the trees -- including glacial kettle lakes, fens and marshes, and prairie openings. Today, these remnant systems are a riddle-filled whisper of Eastern America’s rich ecologic past when the landscape looked immensely different than today. When it comes to earth history, the only thing constant is change.

 Climates in flux. Climates and eco-systems are always shifting. In the last two million years, glaciers have scoured the northern half of North America – not once but many times over. Between glaciations, there have been eras during which the entire continent has experienced warmer, dryer conditions than today. In times of reduced rain, the eastern woodlands contracted into broken forest refuges, while prairies exploded eastward in a sea of green. In the most severely dry periods, prairies may have fingered all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. In wetter times, such as in current conditions, the prairies retreated westward, remaining in the East only as sunny islands amidst a nearly unbroken canopy of trees, separated from their western brethren by hundreds if not thousands of miles. Such geographic isolation has allowed evolutionary forces to sculpt prairie species in the East that, although closely related to their western counterparts, are unique in the world. In short, prairies -- both tall-grass prairies and the more drought-resistant short-grass prairies -- have been expanding and contracting in Ohio for millennia.

In today’s relatively wet climate, trees definitely have the advantage. Even at the time of European settlement, eastern prairies were relatively limited inscope.  In Ohio, tall-grass prairie remnants were primarily found in west-central Ohio – magnificent 6 foot tall grass-savannahs punctuated by solitary gnarled silhouettes of immense bur oaks.  Unfortunately, because tall-grass prairies grow (and create) fertile and highly-organic soils, 99% of America’s tall-grass prairies, including Ohio’s, have been plowed under and destroyed for the sake of modern agriculture. As a result, tall-grass prairies are even rarer in North America than old-growth forests. Prior to their demise, tall-grass prairies in the East probably managed to compete with the preferential forest by undergoing occasional wild fires, either by lightening or the guiding hand of Native Americans.  

Shortgrass prairies have a different history and are found only in the harshest and most inhospitable sites in the East. Here, it is not fire that is the agent of preservation, but rather the extreme soil conditions in which trees simply cannot grow, or if they do grow, do so very slowly. Short-grass prairies can be found in barren sands, such as Lake Erie’s Oak Openings in Toledo, Ohio, or on shale, such as the beautiful Adams County state nature preserve known as Chaparral Woods. But most notably, short-grass prairies are found on very thin highly-mineralized soils lying above a pavement of limestone bedrock. These alkaline prairies – often ringed and penetrated by spires of native Red Cedars, are usually referred to as Cedar Barrens. Although exceedingly rare throughout their range, alkaline prairies can be found in the blue-grass region of north-central Kentucky, in the Cedar Glades of Tennesee and Alabama, along the prairie bluffs of the Missouri Ozarks, and, most significantly from our viewpoint --- in the Adam’s County region of Ohio where Ka-ma-ma Prairie has its home.

Today, the Cedar Barren Prairie is a globally threatened plant community of world significance.

 With the predictability of climate change being nothing short of cosmic law, it is only a matter of time before short-grass prairies once again have their  “day in the sun,” displacing the dying back of the eastern trees. In these future times of drought – their carpet of native green grasses, along with their rich bio-diversity of insects, mammals, wildflowers and birds, would be a welcome blanket upon the ground. But this futuristic scene is only possible if the seedbank of the native prairies can endure a new and even more aggressive challenger than their ancient dance-partner, the forest –  our own human culture.  

Unsurpassed Summer Floral Displays. There is nothing like a real prairie for wildflowers, and this is true for all native prairies, wherever they are found. The secret to prairies' striking flower displays in late summer is simply one thing: unrestricted sunlight. Whereas forest canopies limit  wildflowers' growing season to the short 4 - 6 week window of sunlight between the last deep freezes of winter and May's unfolding tree leaves, prairies are sun-drenched all summer long. As a result, most of them flower -- not in spring as do the forest wildflowers -- but in late summer after they have absorbed a full season of energizing sunlight. Of course, some prairie species can be found in bloom March through November, but without a doubt flowers reach their dazzling peak in mid-August. This rare sight of bountiful bright and colorful flowers in a sun-scorched summer prairie should be witnessed and cherished by every North American. There is literally nothing else quite like it in the world.  Yellow sunflowers, bright red catchflies and tall cool spires of larkspur and blazing stars are hallmark sights of the open prairie. One of the most diagnostic species of eastern short-grass prairies is a bold plant known as Prairie Dock. Its large stiff leaves form a striking upright rosette until August, at which time older plants will shoot upward with tall spires of yellow composite flowers over 6 feet in height. Mid to late summer is also the time signature grasses come into bloom: species such as side-oats gramma and little bluestem.

There are other species of flowers to be found in the prairie's so-called off-season. Some of the most interesting ones are very tiny mustards, the very rare Drabas and Leavenworthias, that bloom in the early weeks of April -- its entire foliage smaller than a penny.  The month of May comes with brilliant fields of Indian Paintbrush, a flower that has a dependent parasitic relationship on certain grasses (and therefore can never be transplanted and tamed); and July is brightened with the flowers of well-known medicinal, Purple Coneflower, a plant whose native home is on the prairie. In September and October the grasslands are dotted with many species of colorful asters, while November closes the season with the enigmatic blooms of stiff gentian. This spring and summer we have a selection of programs below that sample the floral beauty of each unfolding season in Ka-ma-ma Prairie. We hope you get a chance to attend.

Prairie-Earth: The sad fact is that all prairies are in trouble in America, and have been for some time. Whether impacted by climate changes or human development, native prairies have fared even worse than the forest since European settlement. 

Successfully restoring and protecting America's eastern short-grass prairie helps protect the one of the earth's richest botanical legacies, and preserves a museum slice of geologic history. Over the eons, these prairies have witnessed the arrival and development of humankind to the Americas, as well as the coming and going of the Great Age of Mammals, the end of which coincided with the melting of the Pleistocene Glaciers 10,000 years ago. Undoubtedly these prairies were once  the fodder of mastodons, mammoths, and the herds of wild horses, bison, caribou, and elk that roamed the American continent until recent geologic time. The stories these grasslands could tell....and will tell, if only we make sure they continue to have a place on this earth.

The future of the prairie, and the quality of our human future, rests in the stewardship choices we make today. Let it go down in history that, despite the challenges, there was sufficient wisdom in the 21^st Century to save the rich botanical legacy of the American prairies for all time.

Above Photos by John Howard, Naturalist