County Of Yellow Medicine issued the following announcement on Oct. 08.
Mound Prairie Scientific and Natural Area
Minnesota Scientific & Natural Areas
This SNA is comprised of two parcels quite different in character, separated about a mile as the crow flies. It is located within a landscape of rolling hills formed along an ice margin during the late Wisconsinan glaciation, marking an edge where the Des Moines lobe stagnated for a period of time.
The northern parcel lies on Minnesota's border with South Dakota. Dominant native plant communities here include dry hill prairie, mesic prairie, wet prairie and seepage meadow/carr, the last of which occurs where groundwater emerges along drainage ways between hills. Numerous species here are state-listed as special concern, among them Western white prairie clover (which is at the extreme eastern edge of it's U.S. range here), a large population of small white lady's-slipper, yellow-fruit sedge, and Buellia nigra, a lichen. The extent, diversity and quality of the wet prairie are also worthy of note, since many such areas were long ago drained and converted to agriculture in this part of the state. Big bluestem; the delicate flowers of yellow star grass and blue-eyed grass; the spiky, ball-shaped fruits of giant bur-reed; Northern green orchid; woolly and hanging bottle-brush sedge; Riddell's goldenrod, smooth rattlesnake root: together, their presence here indicates an intact, relatively undisturbed place.
The smaller, more southerly unit was a later addition to the SNA. In the words of DNR ecologist Fred Harris, it offers a particularly dramatic and breathtaking example of the hummocky topography of the region. Between 400 and 500 feet of glacial till overlay the bedrock here. Harris was the first to inventory the site for the Minnesota Biological Survey in 1998. What had looked promising on aerial photos proved to be true on the ground. He found that this former pasture hosted a fine example of dry to dry-mesic glacial till hill prairie with a diversity of native species including prairie plum, prairie dropseed and porcupine grass, Floodman's thistle, scarlet gaura, hoary puccoon and Scribner's panic grass. Among the state-listed plant species found here are a number of Great Plains species and specialists in exceedingly droughty soils formed in sand or gravel: Missouri milk-vetch (special concern) and yellow prairie violet (threatened). There are only a handful of records of this tiny, April-blooming yellow violet in Minnesota, all of which are near the South Dakota border. The 160 acres of this unit were acquired by the SNA program through sale from the private landowner in 2012. Harris was pleased that a site he had inventoried later became an SNA, “Playing a part in helping protect a site is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job.”
Signs of prior land use are still visible in the form of retired crop/pasture land and clearings associated with former homesteads. Restoration to native vegetation is an ongoing effort with prescribed burns, selective removal of woody vegetation and release of spurge beetles for bio-control of leafy spurge. Multiple cooperative agreements with local farmers allow for prescribed haying as well as limited planting of row crops during the period of transition. It will be exciting to watch this SNA evolve in the coming years.
Original source can be found here.
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