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Red Buckeye Don’t miss the delight of standing beneath one of these small trees while they are in spring bloom, their pendulous male catkins adorning each branch. Each has fruit that hangs on the tree into winter looking like little pagodas on hornbeam and hops on hophornbeam. Songbirds like the seeds inside. Hornbeam’s fall color is one of the best of any tree’s, ranging from yellow to orange and red, with hophornbeam a more mellow yellow. Hophornbeam holds its leaves into winter (a condition termed “marcescent”) adding to its appeal. Hophornbeam’s branching is delicate and resembles the veining inside a leaf when viewed from below. Hornbeam’s sinuous gray trunks— which give the species its other common name, “musclewood”—make it stand out in winter. Alan Branhagen perfect for natural gardens—Ohio buckeye is always a stunning compliment to redbuds blooming in spring. Woodlands edged with red buckeye and flowering dogwood with Virginia bluebells underneath was a living mural I will never forget seeing in Missouri’s Mingo National Wildlife Refuge. Deciduous Holly Possumhaw or deciduous holly (Ilex decidua) is the dazzler in the winter landscape with vibrant red fruit on female trees. As showy as any flowers, the fruits last on the trees for months, only to dwindle as songbirds raid them. The fruits are usually guarded by a mockingbird, which adds to the entertainment value of the tree through winter. The inconspicuous white flowers in spring are nectar-rich and make a fine honey. Deciduous Holly Fringetree Alan Branhagen www.HenryDomke.com Buckeyes Buckeyes’ burst of fresh spring growth before other trees makes them a favorite to experience after winter. Ohio buckeye’s (Aesculus glabra) yellow flowers and red buckeye’s (A. pavia) scarlet flowers set off by fresh green leaves are not only fine to look at, but also nectar-rich for hummingbirds to bumblebees. Both these trees can, like the hawthorn, have premature leaf drop, but are The wealth of small trees native to Missouri, with their abundant appeal, will I hope become irresistible for more and more gardeners. To me it wouldn’t be spring without the fragrance of wild plums or the fleecy flowers of fringetree, or the end-ofsummer “antlers” of white spheres of devil’s walkingstisck (Aralia spinosa) flowers. Incorporate these Missouri native treasures in your landscape and create a beautiful living work of art. Alan Branhagen is the director of horticulture at Powell Gardens in Kingsville, MO, and also serves on the Missouri Prairie Foundation’s Grow Native! Committee. 22 Missouri Prairie Journal Vol. 35 No. 1
Native Warm-Season Grass News • Spring 2014 A Landowner’s Guide To Wildlife-Friendly Grasslands Stevie Collins The Patch-Burn Grazing Working Group has been meeting annually since 2003, and I attended the 2013 meeting in September. Pete Bauman, with South Dakota Extension, hosted this year’s meeting held in Gary. The theme was “Patch Burn Grazing in Fragmented Landscapes.” Attendance was 105 folks from state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private landowners. Much excellent information was presented at the meeting and I thought I would share it with readers. I believe that patch-burn grazing (PBG), or other grazing regimes, can be very effective grassland management tools. Yours for better grasslands, Steve Clubine Notes from the 2013 Patch-Burn Grazing (PBG) Working Group Meeting It was a depressing drive up I-29 through the corn and soybean desert of the Missouri River Valley and across eastern South Dakota. Fewer than three years ago, the eastern South Dakota landscape was mostly prairie and Conservation Reserve Program grasslands. A South Dakota State University study, published in March 2013, estimated that 1.3 million acres of grassland were destroyed to plant crops in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Nebraska between 2006 and 2011. Such sod-busting for corn and soybean cropping has been concentrated in the Dakotas, east of the Missouri River. The magnitude of this conversion is similar to the peak rates documented during the 1920s and 1930s, when tractors and other mechanized equipment came into widespread use, say study authors Christopher Wright and Michael Wimberly. Soon after we turned east off I-29 toward the tiny town of Gary, we passed through several thousand acres of rolling native prairie rangeland, eyewash for corn-burned eyes. Some of this prairie turned out to be sites for some of the meeting field trips. Several ranchers in this area had volunteered to experiment with PBG and these sites were stops for one of the field trips. We also learned that much of the area was put into permanent easements by the ranch owners, hopefully preventing future generations from destroying these last remaining grasslands. Ryan Harr, Iowa Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist, was the first speaker, and I summarize many of the points he made below because I feel that they pertain to much of Missouri as well as to Iowa. • Grasslands are dependent on disturbance, with fire and well managed grazing being critical. Editor’s Note The Missouri Prairie Foundation’s position on using grazing with cattle for prairie management is that the size and quality of prairie may determine the type of management applied, and that it should be used and monitored carefully. That is, conservation grazing regimes on very small and/or high quality prairie whose sole purpose is conservation of all prairie-dependent species, if used at all, might be very different from grazing regimes on prairie plantings, prairies and other grasslands in cattle production, or highly degraded prairie. • While European settlers weren’t exactly comfortable with fire, there was still a lot of burning happening, about once in ten years, up until the mid-twentieth century. Somehow that changed. Harr pointed out that a northwestern Missouri prairie had seen only one fire since 1955, so what happened? Woody invasion! • There seems to be a “reluctance in the prairie peninsula,” Harr said, to using all the tools available to keep grasslands open. Some people are becoming more comfortable with fire, but not with grazing, but Harr felt that the knowledge base is slowly growing to where more ranchers and public land managers understand that grazing can be a valuable tool. • Harr acknowledged that “grazing is not appropriate in all cases.” • Grazing management in the past preached take half and leave half (meaning graze the top half of height but leave the bottom half to maintain root growth and root reserves). That formula leaves out a transitional state that is important for wildlife species. Some flora and fauna need little cover and lots of sunlight, others require dense cover and little sunlight and many require the full array of cover heights and densities during life requisites. However, even this basic tenet of grazing management has not been taught in 30 years at any state university, so few people understand the importance of grazing or what conservation grazing is. • Stocking rate is the key to maintaining “patch contrast.” Harr offered the idea of leasing based on Animal Units (AUs) Vol. 35 No. 1 Missouri Prairie Journal 23
Page 1 and 2: Spring 2014 Volume 35 Number 1 Miss
Page 3 and 4: Contents Spring 2014 Volume 35, Num
Page 5 and 6: • Created new policies to guide M
Page 7 and 8: 2014 Grow Native! Resource Guide To
Page 9 and 10: , MPF Members and Other Supporters
Page 11 and 12: Nancy and Kent Parrish Scott Patric
Page 13 and 14: Sarah Hirsh The Prairie Strips Prac
Page 15 and 16: Members of the STRIPS team laying o
Page 17 and 18: An Arkansas darter (Etheostoma crag
Page 19 and 20: Summary of the total fish species c
Page 21: Redbud www.HenryDomke.com Corkspur
Page 25 and 26: woody control and getting varied pl
Page 27 and 28: Education on the Prairie with Jeff
Page 29 and 30: Dr. Curtis W. Long Clair M. Kucera
Page 31 and 32: www.HenryDomke.com Honorariums and

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