Tallgrass Prairie Preserve | Photo by Scott Bean, text by Keith Miller, authors of Kansas Landscapes:A Photographic Tour of the Region’s Geological History
The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and the Konza Prairie south of Manhattan, are both important remnants of virgin tallgrass prairie in the Kansas Flint Hills. These remnants exist because the hard flint bearing limestones prevented plowing by frontier homesteaders.
This diminishing prairie ecosystem once extended north from Oklahoma into Canada on the wetter eastern side of the Great Plains. It is characterized by tall grass species such as
big bluestem, little bluestem, Indian grass, and switchgrass, all of which can grow up to six feet tall with root systems just as long.
Fire was critical to the maintenance of the tall grass ecosystem whether started by lightning, or as intentional burns by native peoples to attract bison herds.