Paradise Lost? the Coastal Prairie of Louisiana and Texas
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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service U.S. Geological Survey Paradise Lost? The Coastal Prairie of Louisiana and Texas History Coastal prairie is a The Coastal Prairie is located along the western gulf coast of the United native grassland found States, in southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas, just inland from the along the coast of Texas coastal marsh (see map). This Coastal Prairie is a tallgrass prairie similar in Historical range of and Louisiana. Over nine Coastal Prairie. Stars many ways to the tallgrass prairie of represent national the midwestern United States. It is wildlife refuges. estimated that, in pre-settlement million acres of prairie times, there were nine million acres of Coastal Prairie, with once existed as a grassland 2.5 million acres in paradise for Native Americans and early settlers. Today less than 1% remains as a refuge for rare and endangered birds, mammals, reptiles, insects and plants. Is Louisiana, and 6.5 million acres in Texas. Today, substantially less than “Paradise Lost?” Private one percent of the Coastal Prairie remains with remnants totaling less than 100 acres in Louisiana and less groups, conservation than 65,000 acres in Texas. While much of the organizations, and former prairie has been government agencies are converted to pasture for working together to protect cattle grazing, the majority has and restore this “critically been altered for growing rice, imperiled” ecosystem. sugarcane, forage, and Coastal Prairie grain crops. In Louisiana, most of the They need your help and railroad remnant in prairie’s few remaining remnants are July found on narrow strips of land along support if this effort is to railroad tracks. A larger amount remains in Texas because it was used succeed. for cattle production and never plowed. Many species, however, have been lost through overgrazing. 2 3 Coastal Prairie differs from that The “Cajun Prairie” of Louisiana found in the Midwest because plant species like sweet golden rod, red The portion of Coastal Prairie found in southwest milkweed, and the grasses slender Louisiana is often called the “Cajun Prairie” bluestem and brown-seed paspalum because it was settled in the early nineteenth are found here. Coastal Prairie also century by exiled Acadian settlers. As of 1999, less Attwater’s prairie provides habitat for the Attwater’s than 100 acres remain of the 2.5 million acres that chicken prairie chicken, a relative of the once dominated this area, making it one of our most extinct heath hen once found in the endangered ecosystems. Most of the few remaining Midwest. remnants of prairie in Louisiana are found on narrow strips of land along railroad tracks. Despite the small size of these remnants, most contain a high diversity of native tallgrass prairie flora. Cajun prairie along railroad right-of-way in May Rejuvenating prairie Factors that contribute to the What makes Coastal Prairie a prairie? with winter fire establishment and maintenance of The Coastal Prairie can be likened to prairie are soil type, fire, rainfall, and the central and northern “tallgrass grazing. Drought, fire, and prairie.” Many wildflowers common competition from adapted plant to the Midwestern prairies such as species combine to prevent the button snakeroot, compass plant, establishment of woody plants and Kansas gayfeather, and black-eyed maintain a grass-dominated susan are also found in Coastal ecosystem. Prairie. In those remnants that still exist in Louisiana, switchgrass, little Many prairie species depend on fire bluestem, big bluestem, and for seed production because it Indiangrass dominate just as they do removes accumulated plant litter and in the Midwest. Because of the satisfies seed dormancy needs. region’s high rainfall, and the fact Drought occurs in areas of low that Coastal Prairie gradually turns rainfall and heavy clay soils hold into coastal marsh in Louisiana, water making it unavailable to plants. switchgrass is more common than in Grasshopper Plants can also experience drought- Midwestern prairies. In contrast, foraging on prairie like stress as a result of root remnants of Coastal Prairie in Texas grass restriction caused by a 8-12" deep are dominated by little bluestem, hard pan layer in some soils that brown-seed paspalum, and roots cannot penetrate. Grazing Indiangrass. Common wildflowers (historically bison and elk and now found here are the prairie coneflower, cattle) affects prairie vegetation in Texas coneflower, white heath aster various ways. While it helps seeds to and yellow-puff. germinate by removing their seed 4 5 Grasses and grasslike plants of the Coastal Prairie little bluestem big bluestem split-beard bluestem pinewoods dropseed gaping panicum purple silkyscale silver bluestem bushy bluestem switchgrass Texas wintergrass toothache grass gulf cordgrass Indiangrass Eastern gamagrass brown-seed paspalum knotroot bristlegrass falling beakrush white-top sedge Florida paspalum thin paspalum longspike tridens Carolina’s whipgrass Vahl’s hairy fimbry yellow-eyed-grass 6 7 coat during digestion, it also stresses Coastal Prairie flowers bloom in a grazed plants and creates vivid range of colors from the green disturbances that allow other plants of the green flowered milkweed and to establish. Smaller grazers such as nose burn; to the white of flowering grasshoppers and other plant-eating spurge and button snakeroot; to the insects often concentrate on a single yellow of partridge pea and compass plant species, leaving its neighbors plant; to the blue of blue waterleaf untouched, therefore giving them an and Sampson’s snakeroot; to the pink advantage over their competitors. of false dragonhead and sensitive briar; to the purple of gayfeathers and ironweed; and to the red of the red milkweed and winecup. Coastal Prairie wildflowers are a diverse group with many species belonging to the sunflower, Butterfly weed and Natural prairie abounds with long- legume, and blackeyed Susan in lived perennials which form a dense mint families. flower in May and Native June. “sod” or mat of intertwined roots. Disturbances to this dense mass are Americans and rapidly filled in by growth from European surrounding plants. With the settlers on the exception of partridge pea, false- Coastal Prairie foxgloves and a few others, annuals used plants for are rare in undisturbed prairie sod. foods, spices, dyes, textiles, Plants and medicines. Coastal prairie vegetation consists mostly of grasses overlain by a Kansas gayfeather in Some of the more spectacular plants diverse variety of wildflowers and mass during August in Coastal Prairie include: blazing other plants. Its wildflowers are often stars (with up to three foot spikes of found in patches creating a “flower purple flowers); compass plants (with garden” in the green sea of grass. leaves pointing east and west); button Nearly 1,000 plant species have been snakeroot (an important nectar identified in Coastal Prairie and source for many insects); sweet almost all are perennials with golden rod (with a liquorice odor and underground structures (not all these that can be used to make a tea); false structures are roots) like rhizomes, indigos (yellow or white flowered tubers, or crowns. These underground species, whose flowers were used by structures have a variety of functions, early settlers to dye Easter eggs); one of which is to ensure survival after and butterfly weed (with bright fire. The underground portion of orange flowers favored by Coastal Prairie plants may be up to butterflies). three times the size of the aboveground part. 8 9 Wildflowers of the Coastal Prairie white colic-root false garlic drummond rain lily large-flowered pennywort button snakeroot beeblossom spider lily swamp lily spring beauty water hemlock American snowball whorled milkweed snowy orchid spring ladies’-tresses ten petal anemone narrowleaf sandvine tansy dogshade silky evolvulus Illinois bundleflower white wild-indigo hairy ticktrefoil cluster bushmint clustered slender mountain- mountain-mint mint multibloom-hoarypea white prairie clover flowering spurge white mountain mint poorjoe prairie bluets snow on the prairie New Jersey tea woolly rose-mallow Indian plantain narrowleaf boneset roundleaf boneset 10 11 marsh fleabane rabbit tobacco climbing hemp vine roundpod St. John’s nits and lice St. Peter’s-wort wort doll’s daisy heath aster yarrow grassland prickly Texas prickly pear yellow pear meadowbeauty golden colic-root eastern yellow prairie buttercup narrowleaf seedbox common evening- prairie parsley stargrass primrose huisache yellow-puff partridge pea Canada lousewort false dandelion woolly groundsel nodding wild-indigo yellow wild indigo arrowleaf rattlebox Canadian goldenrod seaside goldenrod shiny goldenrod sidebeak pencil- stiff yellow flax candyroot sweet goldenrod wrinkle-leaf flat-topped goldenrod flower goldenrod 12 13 rayless goldenrod hairy golden aster Maryland golden- yellow Indian- bitterweed fringed sneezeweed aster blanket silkgrass compass plant rosinweed purple-head meadow garlic red iris sneezeweed Texas coneflower prairie coneflower spotflower bearded grass-pink sensitive briar sessile-leaf ticktrefoil annual sunflower Maximilian narrowleaf sunflower round-head coralbean spurred butterfly pea sunflower bushclover ashy sunflower tall coneflower black-eyed susan pink wildbean downy milkpea sandbur lanceleaf coreopsis plains coreopsis tall tickseed Maryland milkwort drumheads pink milkwort 14 15 swamp milkwort Turk’s cap Texas star hibiscus false foxglove sharpsepal Texas thistle beardtongue winecups Maryland meadow