Tallgrass prairies

Two centuries ago, tallgrass prairies covered 20 million acres of Texas, running in an unbroken swath from presentday San Antonio to the Red River. The prairies were first plowed and cultivated beginning in the late 1800s; the dark clay prairie soils produced some of the nations best farmland. Today, remnants of native prairie are so rare that most Texans have never seen one.

In winter, native prairies may look like fallow pastures, but in spring prairie plots come alive with a profusion of wildflowers. The native grasses come into their own in summer and fall, when grasses such as little bluestem, big bluestem, and Indiangrass form waving seas reaching six feet or more into the air.

Texas once contained several types of prairie. Uplands in the Blackland Prairie were dominated by bluestems and other grasses and an array of wildflowers. Switchgrass and eastern gammagrass grew in wet drainages and wet coastal prairies. In northeast Texas where rainfall is higher, a different prairie type occurred, dominated by tall longspike tridens and Silveanus dropseed. Coastal prairies were dominated by other grasses and wildflowers adapted to the sandy coastal soils. But all native prairies in Texas have one thing in common: they are now almost gone. More than 95 percent of original coastal prairie has been displaced by agriculture and urban development. The Blackland Prairies are rarest of all, with less than 3,000 acres preserved out of a 12 million acre area from north of Dallas to San Antonio perhaps the most dramatic loss of habitat in Texas.

Prairie celestials and bluebells were common wildflowers of native prairies.

More than 98 percent of the original tallgrass prairie in Texas has been converted to farmland, rangeland, or suburban sprawl development. Most remaining native prairie examples are only a few acres in size and are threatened by development. Most are used by farmers as hay meadows, as infrequent mowing stimulates grasses and eliminates brush without harming  sites diversity and productivity. Only a few prairies are protected, but many additional prairie sites could be inexpensively preserved through purchase and cooperation with private owners. Saving these last traces of a once vast landscape should be important priorities

Formerly abundant tall grasses such as Indiangrass (above, in foreground) have become rare with de-struction of prairies.. Native prairies contain a profusion of wildflowers throughout spring, summer and fall

Places to see native prairies: Protected Acreage of Native Tallgrass Prairies in Texas: Clymer Meadow State Park, Greenville Cedar Hills State Park, Cedar Hill 10,000 acres Tridens Prairie, Paris Original Extent of Tallgrass Prairies in Texas: Parkhill Prairie, McKinney Kachina Prairie, Ennis 20 Million acres

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