The Once and Future 
Northwest Prairie

Flowering annuals were the most impacted by fire suppression. Here in a burned zone at the Glacial Heritage Preserve native annuals are thriving after being reseeded. Photo: Daniel Mount

The mown lawns of suburbia attest to a human love of open, grassy places. Cultural anthropologists speculate that lawns have a direct link to the great savannahs of Africa, which we left ages ago to colonize the globe. Grasslands are said to have fostered the development of our upright posture and large brains. These grasslands, you could say, are what made us human.

Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica. In North America, we generally refer to our grasslands as prairies, the French word for meadow. Nothing is more iconic to the grand scale of this continent than the vast tallgrass prairies of its interior.

Golden paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta) and seablush (Plectritis congesta) in the Glacial Heritage Preserve (GHP) test plots. Photo: Daniel Mount

There are lesser, but just as important, prairies here in the Pacific ...