Plant of the Week
Big Bluestem
Latin: Andropogon gerardi
 For any who have written a weekly column, choosing the topic is
oftentimes as hard as the actual writing. But not so this week. After a
wonderfully rewarding autumnal tour of the prairie, all I can think of is grass,
especially the dominant grass of the tallgrass prairie - big bluestem.
Big bluestem, Andropogon gerardi, is an impressive native
grass found wild in every state and Canadian provenance east of the Rockies. But
nowhere is it more grand than in the southern Great Plains of northeastern
Oklahoma and southwestern Kansas.
In Arkansas, the tallgrass prairie extends into our western
counties where remnants of it remain in Benton and Sebastian counties. The
"tall" in tallgrass prairie comes primarily from native grasses such as big
bluestem, Indiangrass and switchgrass.
Big bluestem is a clump-forming perennial grass reaching heights
of 8 feet or more when it flowers in the fall. These stout flowering stems are
topped by an inverted turkey-foot type inflorescence that makes big bluestem
easy to differentiate from the kindred grasses of the prairie.
During the summertime, big bluestem clumps often produce
glaucous, blue-green leaves. In the summer, the tallgrass prairie is a rich,
verdant green that soothes the eye and soul. But, come fall, the grasslands
transform into a waving sea of reddish-beige that -- at least to my eye -- is as
beautiful as the best fall foliage display of the eastern woodlands.
The Great Plains doesn’t often come to mind when one thinks of
scenic wonder, but they should. Agriculture has transformed much of the plains
into the breadbasket of the nation, but large stretches of tallgrass prairie
still remain in rocky areas of the Flint Hills region of east-central Kansas and
adjacent areas in Oklahoma.
The southern boundary of this rocky ground protrudes into Osage
County,
Oklahoma north of the county seat of Pawhuska. A friend, a
lifetime resident of Osage County, told me that the Osage chiefs selected the
rockiest ground for their reservation because they knew the white man’s plow
would never hold sway against the rocky soil.
It is in this area that the Nature Conservancy purchased its
38,000-acre Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in 1989 where it is restoring the
ecosystem to its former grandeur.
The tools the Nature Conservancy biologists will use to restore
the ecological integrity to the prairie are decidedly low-tech: fire and
buffalo. Prescribed burns are conducted at different times of the year to
control encroachment of woody vegetation and to help in maintaining a
complementary mix of wildflowers in the stand of grass. The buffalo herd,
originally introduced as 300 head in 1993, now stands at 1,500 animals. The herd
will top out at 3,300, including a spring crop of 1,100 calves.
The buffalo herd that used to ply the Great Plains is estimated
to have numbered over 12 million head but was reduced to fewer than 1,000
animals by the close of the 19th century.
The Nature Conservancy just celebrated its 50th anniversary.
This organization uses the marketplace, coupled with the love private landowners
have for important ecological areas, to preserve valuable wild places. The
Conservancy raises funds from private sources to buy valuable pieces of
property, creating a win-win situation for both the landowner and the
environment.
Big bluestem is easily grown in any sunny, reasonably fertile
soil. It is best used in mass plantings and natural areas at the back of the
border where it is right at home in a naturalistic landscape. Once established,
plants can be easily divided in the spring to increase the area devoted to the
stand of native grass.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
November 22, 2002
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