Our Wild Prairie Legacy
On a cold November morning in 1978 I drove to the far west side of the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL to discover a prairie. My community college biology instructor, Russell Kirt, had given the class an assignment to visit the prairie and fill out a worksheet. I can’t recall the specifics of the assignment, but I know I was to record observations of the site and describe specific plants I found there. I was in a bit of brain fog from a party the night before, but I diligently drove to the site, and walked down the trail from the parking lot to complete the assignment, notebook and worksheet in hand. What I discovered that chill, sunny morning as I explored this strange new landscape captivated and enchanted me. The beautiful expanse of head-high, bronze-colored grasses and dried seedheads of myriad other plants exuded an earthy, herbal scent and rasped and rattled in the cold breeze. It struck me as forlorn, wild and beautiful. This was my first encounter with a native Illinois prairie, and the start of a lifelong attachment. How, I wondered, had I spent nearly two decades of my life in northeastern Illinois and not known about tallgrass prairies?
My love of prairies started with this encounter but would grow over the years as my knowledge of the prairie’s rich plant and insect diversity increased. Eventually, of course, my choice of careers would position me to get deeply involved with prairie restoration, native plant propagation, and teaching others about this uniquely American ecosystem. I was also able to visit some incredibly pristine ‘virgin’ prairie landscapes that had never been altered by the plow. Like many people, I suppose, I had grown up believing that the truly scenic, beautiful places were all somewhere else and certainly not to be found close to home. This was especially so for those of us living in the mostly flat, humanized landscapes of the central Midwest. What I came to learn about prairies is that much of northern Illinois was once covered in a rolling expanse of tallgrass prairie, sedge-filled wetlands and oak savanna from horizon to horizon not so long ago. Indeed, the fertility of the rich soils that lured settlers to arrive and convert those grasslands to tame crop fields and pastures, soils that were a product of centuries of grassland ecology, proved to be the undoing of the American prairie.
While my introduction to prairies occurred during autumn, a fine time to take in a prairie’s late season colors and moods, mid-summer is an even better time to highlight the beauty and uniqueness of the tallgrass prairie. While grasslands exist in many parts of the world, each one unique its own way, the North American tallgrass prairie was an especially rich assemblage of both flora and fauna. With dozens of grass species and several hundred different types of wildflowers, it was a literal Garden of Eden. The operative word here is ‘was.’ The tallgrass prairie today is largely gone from the Midwestern landscape, reduced to small remnants and lovingly tended replanted facsimiles. Here is how Eliza Steele, a writer traveling west near Joliet, IL in July, 1840 described her first encounter with the untrammeled prairie:
“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…We rode thus through a perfect wilderness of sweets, sending forth perfume, and animated with myriads of glittering birds and butterflies…You will scarcely credit the profusion of wildflowers upon these prairies. We passed whole acres of blossoms all bearing one hue, as purple, perhaps, or masses of yellow or rose, and then again, a carpet of every color intermixed, or narrow bands, as if a rainbow had fallen upon the verdant slopes. When the sun flooded this mosaic floor with light, and the summer breeze stirred among their leaves, the iridescent glow was beautiful and wondrous beyond anything I had ever conceived.”
– A Summer Journey in the West, by Eliza Steele
While the unbroken prairie horizons visible in 1840 are only encountered now in the vivid accounts of long-dead travelers, we can still see vignettes of the original prairie in special places throughout the Midwest. There are several landscape-scale prairie preserves scattered from Oklahoma to Illinois, with some of the finest in Missouri and eastern Kansas; however, most of the places where prairie can still be seen are in much smaller state and county parks, botanical gardens, and nature centers. Certainly, vastness is an important characteristic of prairies, as can be discerned from Eliza Steele’s description. Natural beauty, though occurs in both the microcosm as well as the macro. Even a walk through a modest restoration can evoke some of the wild beauty and forlorn spirit of the original, like looking into the eyes of a wolf at a city zoo. The beauty of the prairie can also be appreciated on an even smaller scale, in our own gardens. Many prairie natives provide a sustainable, hardy and beautiful alternative to many of the standard-issue non-native cultivars that people plant around their homes. Some Midwestern states now use native prairie species in roadside plantings due to their durability, and to reduce the expense of mowing, although this should become a standard practice.
A Small Fraction of the Prairie Palette
The Prairie’s Changing Moods
While I may be giving the impression that prairies are/were a pristine aspect of pre-settlement America’s landscape, wild grasslands untouched by the hand of humans, historical research shows us that this was not the case. The tallgrass prairies very likely were one of the grandest collaborations between nature and indigenous cultures the world has seen. Certainly, climate and rainfall patterns influenced what parts of America were forested and which areas were grasslands or deserts. Large herds of migratory grazing animals, i.e. bison, also played a supportive role in maintaining grasslands. The key factor, though, in the establishment of vast grasslands in central North America was fire. Fire was a regular occurrence on the American landscape during autumn and sometimes early spring, and prairies provided a perfect tinderbox for wildfires. Their seasonal dryness, abundant grasses and treeless nature permitted wildfires to travel across vast distances, carried by the winds.
Wildfires require ignition, though, and humans were typically the ones starting the fires. These were not carelessly tended Native American campfires, though. The indigenous people were intentionally burning the landscape on a regular basis. Cultural burning helped to drive grazing animals during fall hunts and also resulted in greener, lusher feeding areas for those grazing animals the following spring. Without getting too deep into the weeds, botanically speaking, suffice to say that deep-rooted prairie plants are fire-adapted. They thrive when exposed to periodic dormant season fires. The burning by native peoples had the effect of not only nurturing native grasslands but helping them spread over hundreds of years into many parts of the American heartland where trees gave way to fire-adapted grasses. Historical accounts of Native people ‘firing’ the prairie during autumn were common prior to the mid-19th century, prior to white settlement. Land managers today still use fire to manage and nurture prairies, using control measures to direct and control the blaze. The fires help to control non-native plants and encroaching brush, maintaining and enhancing the prairie’s native plant diversity.
For many people, the name prairie implies a grassy, overgrown field and nothing more. A walk through a native prairie quickly dispels this perception, even for someone unfamiliar with the plants. Everything just looks different and more vibrant than a weedy field. The presence of so many striking flowers can give the appearance of being planted, and the buzzing of insects and calls of grassland birds add to this diversity. You may even find yourself ‘starting with surprise and delight’ as Eliza Steele described. As an exceedingly rare aspect of our natural heritage here in the Midwest, prairies deserve more of our appreciation and respect. They can teach us how to live with and nurture the land. Eventually, maybe our culture can adopt an ethic of stewardship similar to that of the Native people who worked with nature to create the American prairie.
