Brices Prairie

The oak savannah of previous centuries here in the U.S. were a merging zone on the continental map where mountainous regions met prairies and, kept by natural occurring fire, allowed a palate of growth that ranged from tall grasses to a profuse variety of wildflowers, often commanded over by the surviving oaks that might have looked something like feudal lords watching over their territory.  Wisconsin fit inside this continental jigsaw and much the state had been vast prairies – much information exists that La Crosse itself, just down the black river from from Brice

Prairie, was originally called prairie La Crosse and where now timber stands to the edges of the river was flat, wide and grassy all the way up into the bluff lines.  Today prairies are primarily the result of human intervention; meadows along the sides of the bluffs at Trempealeau, for example, need the hand of the fire starter to keep encroaching brush clear; the great Curtis Prairie at the UW Arboretum is world renown restoration, planted by native species comfortable within the network of remnants found throughout the near location in the state and kept clean by burning and clearing.  Prairies, then, are somewhat the work of artists, mimicking what nature herself used to gladly handle...but the results, if it all takes, is diverse, beautiful and abundant, therefore worth it.  The multi-acre prairie that surrounds the new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Nature Center at Brice Prairie is no exception.  Even despite a hot day, and despite that this prairie has not yet grown its planted oaks to maturity, and therefore no shade, its the dry and colorful panorama that is one of the great throwback landscapes

that any visitor could choose, especially if on the adventurous hunt for milkweed plants and signs of the incubating monarch butterfly.  The entrance itself is lined by butterfly milkweed, that most conspicuous of the species, orange, bright, a little like glowing round lantern wherever they are found in the prairie in patches.  So far this summer the only installs we have seen were the two directly outside the Arboretum nature center, in the wildflower garden, right at eye height when crouching down to inspect.  The obvious beauty of the third stage instar is a lot like assessing the beauty of an exotic jewel that one rarely sees, an almost enamel white and stark yellow that shudders as it consumes its precious milkweed leaves.  No such luck throughout the Brice Prairie today, as we meandered in handout of all of the common or butterfly milkweed that we could see close to trail. Not a single egg or instar to be seen under the high heat....but one monarch, maybe fifteen feet off in the interior, flitting about from nectar plant to plant.  Besides the clovers and the asters, it was the compass plant that became the highlight of this search; to our own amateur eyes questions came up: what strategy does the compass plant use as its enormous basal leaves seem to show a much woodier plant at the base, prickly stem, very unappetizing, and then such a robust flower at the end? Apparently the wide leaves play off of the sun patterns and move in tandem to the heat, hence the idea of the compass. Through the looping trails of the planted prairie, closing in on the nature center again, it's the land 'esthetic' that Leopold understood so well that comes into play as the palate of nature, seen more broadly from a distance, and by now experienced by the walking and exploration, that becomes object of beauty itself, one of the most important components, Leopold thought, of coming to care for nature.  He understood early on that people might not come to care for the 'soil' out of sheer goodheartedness -- in fact many consider the land commodity -- but that if the land is beautiful it may gain favor and cared for properly.  The prairie, stocked full of wildness, a gentle breeze creating motion through the grasses and prairie lily's, can become just the sort of man-made art that could stir easy interest in the young trail walker.  Tempt her with the prospect of inspecting the undersides of the thick milkweed leaf for long jewels and she might come back some day on her own.