OUTDOOR CORNER: THE NATURAL STATE OF MISSOURI

"... the traveler in the interior is often surprised to behold at one view, cliffs and prairies, bottoms and barrens, naked hills, heavy forests, and rocks, and streams, and plains, all succeeding each other with rapidity and mingled with the most pleasing harmony."

- Henry Rowe Schoolcraft from the Journal of a Tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansas in 1818 and 1819.

The face of Missouri has changed greatly in the last 200 years. Vast acreages have felt the impact of agriculture, urban sprawl, highway construction, dams and reservoirs, mining, and stream channelization. With all our modern tools and equipment, almost no piece of land or water has escaped some change. In our use of the land, we have left only the slimmest margin of natural and undisturbed areas.

MISSOURI'S NATURAL LEGACY

Missouri has tremendous natural variety. Its gently rolling tallgrass prairie of the southwest contrasts with the wetlands of southeastern Missouri. Its rivers, streams and springs often meet dramatic cliffs and extensive forests. Rocks estimated to be over one billion years old form the St. Francois Mountains. Two great rivers border and cross the state.

The upper Mississippi delta in the southeast, with its once extensive bottomland hardwood forests and swamps, meets the edge of the Ozark highlands. The glaciated land north of the Missouri River and the unglaciated hills and plains to the south differ in composition of geology, soils, animals and plants. Missouri's diversity creates a landscape that is rich and beautiful.

WHY ARE NATURAL AREAS IMPORTANT?

Natural areas are relatively healthy ecosystems. They are examples of wild ecosystems shaped through natural selection over thousands of years. These ecosystems are the source of plants and animals and other organisms that we have inherited.

The Missouri Natural Areas System preserves some of the best examples of Missouri's great variety of natural terrestrial and aquatic communities and geologic features. They also provide essential habitat for threatened plants and animals. The system includes caves that provide habitat for endangered bats, prairie grassland reserves for our last flocks of prairie-chickens, sandstone canyons where orchids, ferns and relict plants of Missouri's ice age grow, and glades that are home for desert-like plants and animals such as prickly pear cactus, tarantulas and scorpions.

Glades are rocky openings that occur mainly on south and west slopes. They are usually intermingled with savannas and woodlands. Bedrock is at or near the land surface in glades, and the shallow soil layer supports dwarfed trees and nonwoody plants.

Forests have distinct layers of vegetation: a dense tree canopy cover, an understory of smaller trees, shrubs and vines, and a ground cover of shade-tolerant nonwoody plants, lichens and mosses.

Wetland natural communities are periodically saturated or covered by water, and waterloving plants are dominant. In Missouri, wetland natural community types are marsh, fen, seep and swamp.

Rivers and streams in Missouri support an abundance of plant and animal life, including 211 species of fish. Waterfalls, shut-ins, seasonal flooding and other action of water render streams dynamic forces of Missouri's landscape.

Caves are natural openings in the Earth's surface; many are formed when groundwater dissolves limestone and dolomite. Indiana, gray and other bat species have evolved adaptations to survive in the darkness and isolation of caves along with many species of fish, invertebrates and microorganisms.

Springs are formed from a continual or intermittent natural flow of water from the ground. Plants and animals found at springs have adapted to the constant, cool temperature of the spring environment, and some species are restricted to single springs.

Prairies are extensive grasslands with a great diversity of wildflowers, few shrubs and scattered trees. More than 15 million acres of Missouri's landscape was once prairie.

Savannas are open woodlands with open-grown trees. They have no understory.

Considerable light reaches the ground where many species of grasses and wildflowers grow.

WHO OWNS NATURAL AREAS?

Missouri's natural areas are owned by the public and by private organizations. They are protected and managed by the Department of Conservation, the Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City Parks Department, The Nature Conservancy, the L-A-D Foundation, the Missouri Prairie Foundation and the University of Missouri Several natural areas are owned and voluntarily protected by private individuals and commercial corporations.

VISITING NATURAL AREAS

Most natural areas are open for public visitation. They remain undeveloped, although some feature hiking trails and boardwalks. Look for the jack-in-the-pulpit emblem of the Missouri Natural Areas system on natural area boundary signs. If you would like a copy of the directory of Missouri Natural Areas, please contact: Missouri Department of Conservation, Natural History Section, P.O. Box 180, Jefferson City, MO 65102-0180.

Joe Garvey is a district forester for the Missouri Department of Conservation.