Flint Hills Tallgrass: An Amazing Ecosystem

FLINT HILLS TALLGRASS: AN AMAZING ECOSYSTEM
By Kathleen Walls

ON BIG BLEND RADIO: Travel writer Kathleen Walls shares her Tallgrass Prairie experiences touring the Flint Hills Discovery Center and Konza Prairie Biological Station in Kansas. Watch here in the YouTube player or download the episode on Podbean.

If you were a Native American back before white settlers invaded North America, you could have roamed across the Midwest tallgrass prairie that covered over 170 million acres from Canada through Texas. A small portion of this tallgrass prairie is preserved in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma. Only about 4% of tallgrass prairie still exists and it is one of the most diverse biological environments on earth.

The Flint Hills Discovery Center
We began our exploration of the Flint Hills Tallgrass at The Flint Hills Discovery Center in downtown Manhattan, Kansas. The building is an architectural masterpiece, tall shimmering glass outside, so open and inviting inside. In the lobby, the open balcony to the second floor is filled with a realistic presentation of the tallgrass, sunflowers, other plant life that fill Kansas prairie, insects, birds, and wildlife dependent on the grasses and plants for subsistence. The floor has a giant map showing where the tallgrass prairie once covered and where it is now. Our first stop was Horizon Ranch Flint Hills Immersive Experience Theater showing the 15-minute film, Tallgrass Prairie: Tides of Time, an all-senses presentation where you see the history of the prairie from its formation in prehistoric times to the present day. The film shows the three factors necessary for the survival of the prairie: seasonal change, grazers, and fire.

After the film, Stephen Bridenstine, Interim Director, led us through the exhibits. The first floor has exhibits. One shows how the rocky limestone so close to the surface had saved the remaining prairie from being plowed for farmland. The displays are mostly interactive and tell the story of how shells of marine life, from the time when this part of Kansas was an inland sea, were crushed to form different types of sedimentary rocks.

I had always believed tallgrass prairie was all one kind of grass. Here, I learned it was composed of several types. There’s Indian grass, big bluestem, switchgrass, sideoats grama, little bluestem, prairie dropseed, and more. One display shows how the roots often are longer than what is above ground. The roots weave through breaks in the rocks to find soil and moisture.

There are archaeological exhibits showing how prehistoric people lived in the area dating back to eight to ten thousand years ago. Exhibits trace the Paleo-Indians through the Kaw Tribe to the early cowboys and present ranchers.

The second floor is a playstation area where youngsters learn about the Flint Hills. On the roof, there is a fantastic garden of native plants and a path winding down to the Prairie Garden Trail, which winds around the backside of the Flint Hills Discovery Center, from the terrace down to ground level.

Konza Prairie Biological Station
The next day, we went to see the actual prairie. Konza Prairie Biological Station, on the outskirts of Manhattan, manages the native tallgrass prairie preserve jointly owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University.

Chod Hedinger, a 24-year veteran volunteer on the Konza Prairie, met us at the Konza Prairie Nature Trail leading into the prairie preserve. He told us how the name was derived. “There’s over 80 different spellings of konza that come from the konza Indian. Also spelled K-A-N-S-A. But the reason they didn’t use that spelling for this site is because they were afraid that writers would add an S on the end of it and they would become the ‘Kansas Prairie.’ So it’s K-O-N-Z-A Prairie.”

He explained that the Kaw, or Kanzi, Indian village, who inhabited and stewarded this area, was where the Blue River and the Kansas River meet. Over the years, they got pushed farther south until their forced removal between 1846 and 1872.

The Konza Prairie is 8600 acres of Tallgrass prairie. Three main research factors affecting the prairie that they study are fire, climate, and native grazers. Native grazers are the bison. He said, “We have approximately 165 bison grazing 2400 acres in the middle of the Konza. The numbers are increasing as there were about 23 babies as of April.”

He pointed to the opposite side of the area, which was not part of the prairie. Trees and shrubs were growing on it. “If it wasn’t burned, it would look like that. We must get rid of the cedar trees. Cedar trees are bad for the Tallgrass Prairie. Out of the 8600 acres this year, we’ve burned about 7000 acres.” Because of their burning and the grazing bison, he told us, “The prairie grass will grow from five to six feet tall. It can reach 8 feet depending on the climate that year.”

Chod identified some of the different grasses we had learned about at the Flint Hills Discovery Center. When you look closely, they are all different. He showed us brome grass that has an M-shaped indentation on every leaf. One has a seed head that looks like a feather, so it’s Indian grass.

We followed the trail deeper into the prairie across a small swinging bridge over Kings Creek with a sign saying that it could only accommodate three people at a time. We didn’t get to see any of the bison but we saw a lot of songbirds. Chod told us that there are quail, turkey, prairie chickens, and other wildlife like deer and even a few elk that have migrated from the Fort Riley area.

Conclusion
I never understood the term “waves of grass” until I watched the wind ripple across the tallgrass prairie. It truly looks like how the waves roll into the beach on a peaceful gulf. Also, once you visit the Flint Hills, you will never again think Kansas is just flat and boring. This is an amazing ecosystem where this small part that still survives must be preserved.

Plan your visit https://www.flinthillsdiscovery.org/

Kathleen Walls is publisher/writer for American Roads and Global Highways at https://www.americanroads.net/. A member of the International Food Wine & Travel Writers Association, her articles and photographs have appeared in numerous magazines and online publications. She is also an author of numerous travel books, online travel guides, and fiction novels. Learn more about her books at https://katywalls.com/.

PrintFriendly