COMMUNITY JOURNALISM: Pure pleasure at pristine prairie

Editor's note: Rick Hollis, 64, of rural North Liberty, is past president and newsletter editor for the Iowa City Bird Club.

By Rick Hollis, community contributor

Williams Prairie is a 21-acre postage stamp preserve that is representative of two types of prairie that previously covered most of Iowa.

A dozen people met two staff members of the Johnson County Conservation Board - Dave Wehde, vegetation specialist, and Brad Freidhof, naturalist - this month to learn about this area. It retains more than 300 species of native plants, has seen some grazing and regular haying but has never seem a plow.

The county did some aggressive cutting of woody invasives and did one prescribed burn last year. Over the winter, a neighbor's brush pile burn escaped and burned the entire prairie.

The prairie has never looked better.

Wehde and Freidhof showed the group numerous beautiful and some curious plants. The Prairie Blazing Stars are putting on one of the most impressive displays I have seen in Iowa.

We saw Rope Dodder, a parasitic vine that draws its nutrition from the plant it is growing on rather than making its own chlorophyll. Most of the preserve is sedge meadow or wet prairie. The southeast corner is a sand prairie. This year's drought allowed us the rare experience of walking the entire prairie with dry feet.

Walking or hiking is not really the right word for pushing your way through native prairie that is shoulder high in places, has uneven footing because of the hummocky nature of sedges and contains no paths.

This may not be heaven, but to native plant enthusiasts it gets no closer.

This is the Iowa the pioneers saw. As we buffaloed our way through the vegetation, we saw 40-plus species of plants. Some are blooming, some were past and some are yet to bloom. The Blazing Stars, Swamp Milkweeds, Blue Vervain, Ironweed, Spotted Joe Pye Weed and Monarda contribute spots of purples to the overall color of brown and green. Soon the prairie will turn browner and will be dominated by yellows of Goldenrod, Sneezeweed, Saw-tooth Sunflower and Fragrant and Gray-headed Coneflowers.

A parking lot and sign are at the entrance to Williams Prairie north of Oxford and south of the Iowa River. There is much to see in Williams Prairie, and you cannot get lost in it.

You will leave thankful there are people who left some small spots of the state unplowed.