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Iowa CONSERVATIONIST \blume 43 No. 9 • September 1984 STAFF Roger Sparks. Editor Julie Holmes, Assistant Editor Ron Johnson, Photographer Kenneth Formanek. Photographer Larry Pool, Graphic Anist CONTENTS 2 Iowa's Prairie s Wings Over the Prairies 8 Roadside Prairies 10 Prairie Chickens 12 Restoration and Management 15 Conservation Update 20 Prairie Hayfields 20 Nature Tale 22 Warden's Diary 22 Prairie Preserves 27 Special Plants • 31 Wildflower FRONT COVER: Cayler Prairie, an example of Iowa's notural beauty.- Photo by Doug Harr THE IOWA CONSERVATION COMMISSION Donald E. Knudsen, Eagle Grove, Chairman; Baxter Freese, Wellman, Viet Chairman; John D. Field, Hamburg: Marian Pike, Whiting: F. Richard Thorn­ ton, Des Moines; WiU iarn B. Ridout, Estherville, and Thomas E. Spahn, Dubuque. DIRECTOR: Larry J. Wilson. DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Robert Fager! and. DIVISION CIUEFS: Allen Farris; Fish and Wild­ life; Stanley C. Kuhn, Division of Administration: John M. Stokes, Lands and \\bters. SECTION SUPERINTENDENTS: Tom Albright, Engineering; Doyle Adams, Parks; Richard Bishop, Wildlife; James Mayhew, Fishenes; Roy Downing, \Wlters; Lester Aeming, Grants-in-Aid; Gene Hertel, State Forester; Rick McGeough, Law Enforcement, Gene Geissinger. Accounting; Arnie Sohn. Planning; John Beamer, Land Acquisuion; Judy Pawell , License; Ross Harrison, Information and Education, Robert Walker, County Conservation Activities . ••• IOWA CONSERVATIONIST (USPS 268-780), is published monthly by the Iowa Conservation Com­ mission. MWlace State Office Building, Des Momes, Iowa 50319. Second class postage paid in Des Moines. Iowa. and additionol mailing offices. Send changes of address to the Iowa Conservationist, \\bilace State Office Building. Des Moines, Iowa 50319 Send subscrrptrons- one year. $5.00. two years. S8 00 or 3 1tars S/0 00- to the address abo~·e Th~ Iowa Conurvation Commission provides eqAJI opponuml)· regurdleJS of race. creed. color. S<'..t. M tiorwl ori.f(m or nandicap • Ill By Daryl D. Smith ed in time and space. The onrushing The scene was breathtakingly beauti­ storm brought a freshness to the air and ful as the group piled out of the car to a feeling of being in touch with the view this remnant of native Iowa elements swept through my body. I was Sprairie. The area had been burned in transported back to another time when late April and on this July morning was prairies such as this stretched to the a picturesque prairie garden with horizon and beyond, to a time when splashes of color ranging from the bison and prairie chickens were a com­ brilliant deep oranges of the wood and mon sight. The wind was stronger in Turk's cap lilies to the purples of the my face, my spirit soared, and I had prairie clover and prairie gay feather. merged with the world around me. The We had visited other prairie remnants electricity of the air became concen­ so the plants were familiar to us, but trated in bolts exploding across the sky. the sheer number of prairie flowers on I was filled with exhilaration compara­ this mesic lowland portion of Hayden ble to little else I had experienced. Prairie was awesome. Everywhere you The second round of raindrops (I looked were examples of plants that had hadn't felt the ftrSt) brought me back to become rare as tallgrass prairie was reality. As the rainfall increased, I beat a converted to cornfields. hasty retreat to the shelter of my De­ As we absorbed the meadow scene, a troit-produced chariot. The spell was low rumbling to the northwest reminded broken, I was back in the 20th century, us that this idyllic spot could soon be but the memory and the feeling linger. the site of a thunderstorm. The heavy Somehow I want to relive that moment air went unnoticed as we walked across and times such as that aren't often the prairie stopping to examine and consciously recreated. Since they aren't photograph the plants of an ecosystem awarding study fellowships into the past that has virtually vanished. The floral and time travel hasn't been perfected, I roll of representatives of once common will have to recreate my moments of species increased as we added to the list prairie revelry in my mind. wild quinine, white indigo, butterfly Most of us are too young to remem­ and marsh milkweed, compass plant, ber the tallgrass prairie. It was gone or oxeye daisy, leadplant and others. A almost gone before we could know and feeling of reverence descended on the experience it. Iowa, more than any group as we located a late blooming, other, could claim the title of the white fringed prairie orchid. Once a Tallgrass Prairie State. Prior to settle­ common flower of prairie swales, it is ment the state was 85% prairie, 29 now found in only ten locations million acres of grassland that produced throughout the state. There was an urge some of the richest farmland in the to fix this scene permanently in our world. All that remains of that vast, minds since a camera couldn 't capture tallgrass ecosystem are a few scattered the essence of this prairie morning. As relic patches in old-settler cemeteries, we moved across the prairie once again, roadsides and railroad right-of-ways. the air quickened as a breeze began to The tallgrass prairie may be gone, blow from the oncoming storm. There but it is not forgotten because whenever was electricity in the air. people discuss prairies an undercurrent Suddenly I was alone. It became one of excitement seems to flow through the of those moments when one is suspend- group. What is it about an ecosystem of Big bluestem in the summer sunset. the past that generates such interest? ing them against th~ frost and chill , In these two characters Quick has Few people have actually spent time on showing purple-violet on the outside captured the contrast in emotions gener­ the prairie so it is unlikely they are of a cup filled with golden stamens, ated by the prairie - delight and fear, stimulated by direct experience. Per­ the ftrst fruits of the prairie flowers; anticipation and apprehension, promise haps much of the intere t stems from a on the wanner outhem lopes a few and threat. yearning to grasp something of the pa t, of the splendid bird's-a-foot violets of Today the awesome and fearsome a simpler time. the prairie were howing the azure aspects of prairie are diminished as the John Madson in The Running Coun­ color which would oon make orne prairie has been virtually reduced to try (Audubon, 1972) equates his feel­ of the hill ides as blue as the sky; and small living museums. A few aspects ings for tallgra prairie with that of a standing higher than the peering gras that remain to bother orne people are modem man who has fallen in love with rose the rough-leafed stalks of green chiggers, they can be quite annoying if the face in a faded tintype. "Only the which would soon show the yellow precautions aren 't taken , and an appear­ frame i real; the rest i illu ion and puccoon and weet-william and ance that orne interpret as "weedy." dream. So it is with original prairie. The scarlet lilies and hooting star , and The annoyances of the prairie today are beautiful face had faded before I was later the yellow ro in-weeds, Indian far outweighed by the positive effects born, before I had a chance to touch and eye flower and golden rod. The keen on our state of mind. feel it, and all that I have known of the northwest wind swept before it a We need prairie because it is part of · prairie i the etting and the mood - a flock of white cloud ... The wild­ our past. Nature in our daily li ves may broad sky of pure and intense light, with fowl were clamoring north for the well be an inherent biological neces ity. a sort of lightnes to the day , and the summer's campaign of nesting ... It not a luxury. Millions of years of young prairie-born winds running pa t­ was sublime! Bird, flower, grass, inheritance and culture have pro­ me from open horizons." cloud, wind , and the immense ex­ grammed us to a natural habitat of open Much of the feeling for prairie i a pan e of unny prairie, welling up space and a varied wild land cape un­ state of mind. As I have read from into undulation like a woman's di turbed by civilization. Not only is the diaries, journals and recollections of breast turgid with milk for a hungry physical aspect of the prairie important, early settlers and traveler it i apparent race." but our p ychological well-being rna) that the prairie had a psychological In another excerpt, a youth cried in rest upon capturing the essence of the effect on ob erver . Emotional re­ his happine s at eeing the newest, tallgrass prairie. sponses to the prairie varied con id­ strangest, mo t delightful , tern est, erably. Some loved it and spoke of it in most wonderful thing in the world - Daryl D. Smith is the head ofthe biology glowing terms while there were tho e Iowa prairie. At thi , the lady on the department at the University of Northern Iowa. He holds a Ph .D.from the Univer­ who hated the prairie and spoke of it a wagon be ide him burst out , "I don't Balli "fearful place." wonder that you cry. Gosh! [t scare me sity of Iowa. Favorable aspects of the prairie in­ to death." . It 1 cluded beautiful and delicate flowers, arr \\-~ freedom of wide horizon , moving Anderson Prairie, a 200-acre state preserve, is locaied in Emmet County.

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