Boone County, Arkansas. Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission / The Nature Conservancy. Baker Prairie is representative of the prairie that once existed on the Springfield Plateau of the Ozark Mountains. It is the largest known tract of Ozark prairie that occurs on a chert substrate. The prairie harbors several species of plants and animals of special concern in Arkansas. Baker Prairie’s timely protection was especially important due to its location within the growing city of Harrison.

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Fort Bend County, Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife. This park comprises 400 acres of fairly good Indian grass-little bluestem tall grass coastal prairie and is managed through periodic prescribed burning and mowing. It is the best example of coastal prairie on department lands, and is an important aspect of the park interpretive program. Future plans call for introduction of population of Attwater’s Prairie Chicken, common here about 40 years ago.

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Fall River / Pennington / Jackson / Custer County, South Dakota. US Forest Service. Buffalo Gap National Grassland, located in Wall, South Dakota, is part of the badlands area in southwest South Dakota. Administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the 600,000-acre prairie includes a visitor center that offers information on all 20 national grassland areas, along with an educational exhibit about Buffalo Gap National Grassland. The grassland is free to visit and is open 24 hours year-round. Guests can enjoy dirt-bike trails, hiking areas and horseback riding throughout the grassland. A developed trail offers 5.5-mile and 15-mile loops that include educational markers. There are many opportunities for nature and wildlife photos throughout this large grassland area, where visitors might find black-footed ferret, prairie dogs, deer, coyotes, badgers, gophers, red fox and a variety of birds.

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Franklin County, Arkansas. Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission. Cherokee Prairie Natural Area is one of the largest remaining tracts of tallgrass prairie in the Arkansas Valley. Located just north of Charleston, this tract is a high-quality prairie representative of the more extensive Cherokee Prairies that once occurred across the western portion of the Arkansas Valley. The natural area contains a diverse array of forb species (herbaceous species other than grasses) including compass plant, purple prairie clover, and Indian paintbrush. It also supports a number of plant and animal species that are now considered rare, or even endangered. Prairie Creek flows through the center of the natural area.

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Lake County, Indiana. Shirley Heinze Land Trust. Cressmoor Prairie Nature Preserve, located in Hobart, Indiana, is a rare, 36-acre prairie ecosystem that is composed of pure silt-loam soil and provides a rich growth bed for natural prairie flowers. Cressmoor has a 2-mile mowed trail through the 5-foot-tall prairie grass. Visitors will see prairie flower specimens that include varieties of indigo, gentian, prairie dock and compass plant. Other prairie species that bloom throughout the summer and fall include asters, blazing star, goldenrod, lily and sunflowers. The preserve is free to the public and has a parking lot near the start of the trail system.

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Franklin County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas. A spectacular and pristine 922 acres of rare Silveus’ Dropseed-Longspike Tridens Prairie northeast of Mount Vernon. Also present are plentiful big bluestem, little bluestem, switchgrass, and indiangrass. Picturesque mima mounds, the tallest in the state, are a feature of alfisol prairies and support a different suite of plants which prefer the slightly drier, better drained soil on the mounds. Depressions within the native prairie create vernal wet areas which are dominated by hydrophilic forbs. Owned by BF Hicks. Conservation easement by Native Prairies Association of Texas. Sign up for their newsletter to learn of open days.

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Story County, Iowa. Story County. Doolittle Prairie is a 40-acre tract of pothole prairie. It is a blaze of color from May through October as prairie wildflowers and grasses bloom. The pothole areas provide valuable habitat for wetland wildlife. Doolittle Prairie is utilized by the Environmental Education Program as an outdoor classroom, with many classes using it as a destination for their field trips.

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Shelby County, Iowa. Museum of Danish America.

Enjoy a commanding view of the lush Iowa hills and 30 acres of recreated prairie surrounding the Museum of Danish America in the Jens Jensen Prairie Landscape Park. Designed in 2011 and installed in 2012, the park is intended to celebrate the life and work of Jens Jensen, a Danish immigrant who became one of America’s leading landscape architects. A colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright, Jensen pioneered the “Prairie School” of landscape architecture and is celebrated today as an early advocate for native plants and the conservation of natural spaces.

By restoring native plant life and hydrology, the park aims to provide wildlife and pollinator habitat and to increase plant diversity. It also has the potential to emulate an Iowa prairie in the manner that homesteaders may have encountered when they first settled here, before all of the changes that those same homesteaders brought.

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Wilson County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas.

Kirchoff Family Farm features three geologic formations (Leona Formation, Wellborn Formation, and Cadell Formation) and five soil mapping units (Coy clay loam, Buchel clay, Saspamco fine sandy loam, and Loire and Divot soils). The property supports reestablished grasslands in the fields that were previously utilized for agriculture then reseeded as well as a dense, woody plant community commonly found in South Texas. Native prairie habitat has been restored on blackland prairie of the Kirchoff Family Farm. Two natural riparian areas exhibit Tamaulipan floodplain habitat containing few invasive species.

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Geary / Riley County, Kansas. Kansas State University. Konza Prairie Biological Station (KPBS) is located on a 3,487 hectare native tallgrass prairie preserve jointly owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University. The KPBS is located in the Flint Hills of northeastern Kansas, a grassland region of steep-slopes overlain by shallow limestone soils unsuitable for cultivation.

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Harris County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas. A 51 acre example of one of the most endangered ecosystems and called a “platinum prairie” with over 300 native species of plants. Animals that live here include pocket gophers, three-toed box turtles, Eastern meadowlarks, black bellied tree ducks, red-winged blackbirds, black-shouldered kite and many others. Less than 1 % of the 9 million acres of coastal prairie of Texas and Louisiana remains. Only a few of the remaining ones are high quality and even fewer can be found within an urban area. This prairie is located in the heart of industrial oil centered Houston metroplex within the city of Deer Park.

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Falls County, Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife. An 11-acre Blackland Prairie remnant with gilgais conserved by Correne (Lehmann) Dragoo’s as a family hay meadow for several generations, Conservation easement by Native Prairies Association of Texas. Please sign up for our newsletter to learn of open days.

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Mitchell County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas. Maddin Prairie Preserve features remnant and restored mixed-grass prairie, mesquite savanna, and riparian areas. A tributary of Champion Creek passes through the property and features a diverse riparian area.

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Bowie County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas. Mary Talbot Prairie (formerly known as Godley Prairie) is a rare *Silveus’ dropseed prairie that NPAT was able to acquire through the efforts of numerous parties. Jason Singhurst, TPWD botanist and NPAT board member first brought this property to our attention. It had recently been listed for sale and the prospect of losing another example of Texas living history was a major concern.

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Matagorda County, Texas. US Fish and Wildlife Service. An estimated 500-750 acres of barrier island strand / seacoast bluestem prairie are fenced in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge to exclude grazing so that the tract can be managed as a natural community. Sometimes called salt meadow, this narrow grassland occurs in the high sandy ridges behind the dunes and above the marsh grasslands. Very little of this community type remains in Texas.

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Will County, Illinois. US Forest Service. The Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie (MNTP) is a tallgrass prairie reserve and United States National Grassland operated by the United States Forest Service. The first national tallgrass prairie ever designated in the U.S. and the largest conservation site in the Chicago Wilderness region, it is located on the site of the former Joliet Army Ammunition Plant between the towns of Elwood, Manhattan and Wilmington in northeastern Illinois.

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Ward County, Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife. The park features a very interesting tall grassland community within the Chihuahuan Desert. Tall grasses such, as giant sandreed, sand bluestem, Havard panicum and little bluestem exist together in mosaic with Havard oak on deep windblown sands. This community type is related to those found on deep sands elsewhere in the Trans-Pecos (e.g., The Nature Conservancy’s Gypsum Dunes Preserve) and eastward in deep sands throughout the Rolling Plains. However, few good undisturbed examples remain.

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Wabaunsee County, Kansas. Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards. The Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie is a 45-acre public park in Wabaunsee County given to the people of Kansas in 1953 as a memorial to the Freestate Beecher Bible and Rifle Colony and one of its leaders, Captain William Mitchell. Ruts and swales from the territorial Topeka/Fort Riley Road are also a feature of the park.

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Jasper County, Iowa. US Fish and Wildlife Service. Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge (tallgrass.org), located in Prairie City, Iowa, features more than 5,000 acres of restored prairie grass, including tallgrass prairie, oak savanna and sedge meadow. Many of the grass varieties were seeded from plants rescued within the refuge and other prairie areas in the state. Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge includes a Prairie Learning Center building that includes an exhibit about the prairie, a movie theater and bookstore. The center is free to the public and open seven days per week. The outdoor refuge is free for the public to visit throughout the year from dusk to dawn, except on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

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Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The Ojibway Prairie Complex is a collection of five closely situated natural areas totaling more than 340 acres (835 hectares) within a 10 minute drive from downtown. The Ojibway Nature Centre administers four of these areas which are owned by the City of Windsor – Ojibway Park, Tallgrass Prairie Heritage Park, Black Oak Heritage Park, and Spring Garden Natural Area, collectively designated as the Ojibway Prairie Remnants Area of Natural and Scientific Interest (ANSI), as well as the Ontario Prairie Provincial Nature Reserve, owned by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. The most striking aspect of the Ojibway Prairie Complex is the tremendous variety of vegetation and animal life. Wetlands, forest, savanna and prairie provide habitat for a great number of rare plants, insects, reptiles, birds and mammals.

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Franklin County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas. A 100-acre Blackland Prairie remnant north of Floyd that is an excellent example of a vertisolic (gumbo clay) prairie with very pronounced gilgai formations. Vigorous populations of tallgrass species such as eastern gamagrass, switchgrass, and indiangrass. Owned by Native Prairies Association of Texas. Conservation easement by The Nature Conservancy. Please sign up for our newsletter to learn of open days.

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Weld County, Colorado. US Forest Service. Pawnee National Grasslands is located in Briggsdale, Colorado, about 35 miles east of Fort Collins. The grassland area in the northeastern part of the state is about 193,000 acres of natural grasses and wildlife. Trails are scattered throughout Pawnee National Grasslands for hiking, bird-watching and viewing geological features of the prairie. Guests might see raptor nesting areas, mountain plover and burrowing owl. Animals that live in the grassland include mule deer, prairie dogs, swift fox and coyote. Camping and horseback riding are allowed in the grasslands. The Pawnee National Grasslands area does not have a learning or welcome center.

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Falls County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas. A 5-acre gem of Blackland Prairie east of Waco.

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San Jacinto County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas. This property contains several ecotypes found throughout east Texas including pocket prairies and Catahoula barrens surrounded by pine, hardwood, and bottomland forest. This lush forest and grassland region on the banks of Lake Livingston will not only be conserved in perpetuity itself but also connects several other conservation easements into a larger, contiguous conserved area.

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McLennan County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas. After growing up in the area and learning about prairies, Mike remembered seeing prairie before the area of Simpson Prairie became overgrazed. Mike then searched for and found part of the overgrazed prairie, purchased it, and restored Simpson Prairie. Mike has used seed hay from Simpson Prairie in area prairie restoration and plantings. Simpson Prairie is a prairie remnant of the Grand Prairie (Lampasas Cut Plains of the Cross Timbers and Prairies) on a gently sloping hillside. Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans), and Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) are dominant grasses.

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Chase County, Kansas. National Park Service / The Nature Conservancy. Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve was established in 1996. It is the only unit of the National Park System dedicated to the rich natural and cultural history of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem. This 10,894 acre portion of the once vast tallgrass prairie is being preserved as a critical resource for the benefit, education, and enjoyment of this and future generations. It is a unique private/public partnership between the National Park Service (the primary land manager) and The Nature Conservancy (the primary landowner).

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Osage County, Oklahoma. The Nature Conservancy. The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, located in Osage County, Oklahoma near Foraker, Oklahoma, is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy. It is protected as the largest tract of remaining tallgrass prairie in the world. The preserve contains 39,000 acres (160 km2) owned by the Conservancy and another 6,000 acres (24 km2) leased in what was the original tallgrass region of the Great Plains that stretched from Texas to Manitoba.

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Tarrant County, Texas. Tandy Hills Natural Area (THNA) is a 160-acre indigenous remnant of Fort Worth prairie located in the heart of Fort Worth, Texas. The land was obtained by the City of Fort Worth Parks and Community Services Department in 1960 and designated a “natural area” in 1987. Noted for its unusually complete collection of prairie flora, THNA contains more than 600 native plant species. The show of spring wildflowers is unsurpassed in the DFW Metroplex. The land is a living example of how most of Fort Worth and the Great Plains appeared in predevelopment times. The fact that it has never been plowed or developed and survived into the 21st century in relatively pristine condition is remarkable.

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Lee County, Texas. Native Prairies Association of Texas. The Tanglewood site is a very good example of post oak savanna grassland. It is dominated by native perennial midgrasses, has high species diversity but only a few exotics, and might readily be managed with fire during periods of westerly winds. The only reservation about a quality assessment is that there is nothing to compare the site to, since the botanical and conservation communities have paid scant attention to post oak savanna communities in Texas and thus qualitative assessments of other sites are lacking.

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