The Cajun Prairie: a place worth caring about

The Cajun Prairie is a miraculous and fabled place.  Though only "remnants" remain of the original coastal grasslands of Louisiana (of what once was a vast wild acreage), there are a few plots that have been restored by a small group of dedicated and mighty stewards. They had a meeting recently last weekend August 11, 2012 and I made a point go meet the people and see their work. The list of attendees was a veritable Who's Who of Louisiana botany and plant conservation.

I couldn't possibly aspire to tell the whole story of this landscape tonight. And a book has been written and published recently that does that all too well.

Get a copy!

But I found this USGS/USFWS document which you can download for free: "Paradise Lost?" that tells some of the story and contains lists and pictures of different plants and animals found there. Oddly, I found it while searching the net for an ID on a wildflower. Who would ever find these jewels of information floating around on the net? They seem to me like messages in a bottle, adrift in a large and indiscriminate sea.

The following is a kind of photo essay on the prairie. I will try to write more on the prairie after I finish Dr. Vidrine's book and have some time to absorb the immensity of the history (and tragedy and comeback) of Louisiana's first meadows.

Eryngium yuccifolia "Rattlesnake Master"

Solidago sp. "Goldenrod"

Silphium laciniatum "Compass Plant" and Gaura lindheimeri "Lindheimer's Beeblosom"

Helianthus mollis "Ashy Sunflower"

Liatris spp. "Blazing Star"

Rhexia sp. "Meadowbeauty"

Hydrolea ovata "Blue Waterleaf"

Agraulis vanillae "Gulf Fritillary"

Hibiscus sp. "Native Hibiscus"

Passiflora incarnata "Purple Passionflower"

Centrosema virginianum "Butterfly Pea"

Malcom Vidrine, the author of Cajun Prairie, a man who has spent much of his life working to restore Louisiana prairie, invited me to his house.

Needless to say, the man loves prairies. He has turned most of his yard into one and propagates milkweed species to plant around his house for the monarchs and other butterflies.

Asclepias spp. - Many varieties of milkweed

Asclepisa tuberosa "Butterfly Weed"

Bidens sp. "Tickseed"

He made a point to show us the wild ancestor of cultivated corn, Eastern Gamagrass.

Tripsacum dactyloides "Eastern Gamagrass"

Monarda punctata "Horsebalm" and Chamaecrista fasciculata "Partridge Pea"

On my way out of town I noticed a National Park Service building: Prairie Acadian Cultural Center. Strange, I thought. I'm used to seeing these kind of interpretive centers in natural areas. The National Parks does a good job telling the story of people through the lens of the land and I've been a big fan of their interpretive programs for some time. I watched a wonderful presentation  by a very expressive man on how to make authentic cracklins. Afterwards I searched the museum for prairie remnants. There was a little bit of it mixed throughout, but no contiguous blocks of information on the natural communities. Certainly, I am not blaming anyone for this. The center was amazingly curated and stuck to its cultural purposes. But how wonderful would it be to marry the two, wholeheartedly? To visualize the deep connection the Cajuns must have had with the land, living so close to it? To see the land as they saw it, flower by flower?

*

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain...