Botanical Bouquet

SILOAM SPRINGS - Standing waist deep in a patch of tallgrass prairie, Joe Woolbright appreciated the greenhouse effect of a warm, humid morning.

“I can count eight species of wildflowers blooming within 10 feet of where I’m standing,” Woolbright observed last Thursday.

Pointing out blooms in blue, pink, yellow and orange, he identified wildflower species including shooting stars, sun drops, prairie phlox, Indian paintbrush, coreopsis, toadflax, prairie parsley and colic root.

The variety of blooms found in an area no bigger than a bedroom provided a tiny hint of the tremendous assortment of flowering plants growing on the 60 acres of the Chesney Prairie Natural Area.

“We are just now in the transition time from spring wildflowers to summer wildflowers,” Woolbright said of one of the last remaining remnants of tallgrass prairie in Benton County.

“During the spring and summer,we usually have 20 to 30 species constantly in bloom, but from now on it’s going to be changing every two weeks.”

Suffice it to say, the natural prairie habitat owned by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission represents a premier area to learn about the blooming beauty of Northwest Arkansas on an extended basis.

“You really need to come out here about once a month during the growing seasons to begin to get a feel for what’s out here,” Woolbright said.

As a contract land steward paid to maintain the prairie, Woolbright has become intimately acquainted with its rich diversity of plants during the nine years he has spent fostering the native species and fighting off non-native plants.

While the effort has been a constant regimen of burning, spraying and mowing, Woolbright appreciates people coming out to see what he has saved and nurtured. Toward that end, he has mowed meandering trails throughout the prairie.

“We have about 2 1/2 miles of trails out here,” he said.

Following portions of those trails Thursday morning, Woolbright went from one colorful species of wildflower to another, including such common species like the pink puffball blooms of sensitive briar and the snow-white petals and butter yellow center of the ox-eye daisies.

Stopping beside clusters of solid yellow blooms with spiky petals, he noted the plant was one of six species of coreopsis commonly seen in bloom on the prairie.

Some wildflowers were small and tucked away in the grass, like the yellow sundrops, and others reared in bold color up to 3 feet tall, like the large patches of purple-colored spiderwort.

Some flowers were clearly among Woolbright’s personal favorites, such as the bright-blue larkspur. “A jewel of a wildflower,” he said.

PRAIRIE ANATOMY

Along the way, he pointed out subtle features of the prairie that contributed to its diversity of plants.

“At one time, this prairie was part of 20 square miles of prairie known as the Lindsey Prairie,” Woolbright said. “What we have left here is a mix of damp prairie and dry prairie bordering a riparian zone along a creek drainage.”

The dry prairie portion includes low, rounded mounds that appear as small islands in a sea of grass.

“These natural mounds were created 5,000 to 8,000 years ago by wind-blown soil when this area was a desert,” Woolbright said.

The mix of terrain on land that had remained in a natural state since long before the homesteading era has resulted in the appearance of unusual flowering plants known as “disjunct” plants.

Two that are not supposed to be present are the colic root that is normally found in southern Arkansas and the shooting star, generally a deep-woodsplant that grows on limestone bluffs, Woolbright said.

The flowering plants on the Chesney Prairie also include a half-dozen very rare species known as S-1 plants. These are found only in a few places in Arkansas and include two very recent discoveries.

“One of them is the white-flowering goldenrod that was found here as recently as 2004,” Woolbright said. “The last time it was seen was 1879, according to information at the University of Arkansas’ herbarium.”

Finding the other one became a veritable hunt in the tall grass before we found a solitary plant about 10 inches tall with a stem of intricately shaped rose-pink blossoms.

“This is the Oklahoma grass-pink orchid that was first identified as a new species in the 1990s; it only blooms for three days every four or five years,” Woolbright said.

He also took special pride in singling out a lush strip of prairie that was the result of an innovative restoration experiment.

When the widening of Arkansas 59 near Siloam Springs last year threatened to destroy part of a small patch of native prairie known as the Stump Prairie, Woolbright got involved, suggesting the affected prairie be cut into stripsand rolled up to be transplanted to the Chesney Prairie.

“No one thought it would work, but it did,” Woolbright said.

Altogether, he was able to find and identify about two dozen species of wildflowers, but he noted that many others would soon be blooming.

While Woolbright knew the plants on sight, he also noted his knowledge has increased through study and frequent use of wildflower guidebooks.

“I can recommend three,” he said. “Foremost is Carl Hunter’s Wildflowers of Arkansas, but I also like Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers and Missouri Wildflowers.”

BIRDWATCHERS PARADISE

During the stroll through the prairie, we saw a man walking his dog and carrying binoculars.

“That’s Warren Fields, who lives in Siloam Springs and comes out here almost every day to exercise his dog and look for birds,” Woolbright said.

Sure enough, during a brief chat with Fields, he noted that his best sightings of the morning had been a great horned owl and a redheaded woodpecker.

As we continued on our way, Woolbright said the Chesney Prairie is one of the best and most popular bird-watching sites in the area. He mentioned, for example, that Joe Neal, co-author of Birds of Arkansas, recently led an Audubon Society group on a bird-watching hike around the prairie.

“Our classic grassland birds out here are Eastern kingbirds, scissortails and meadowlarks, but 174 species of birds have been seen out here,” Woolbright said. “Over 50 species of birds were seen on one day this spring, including an unusual sighting of a Swainson’s hawk.”

Certainly, bobwhite quail are present because we heard several whistling and flushed one pair from the grass.

Some of the rarest sightings of birdsvisiting the prairie are during periods of migration.

“The rarest one to stop by was a longbilled curlew. It was only the fifth time one has been seen in Arkansas, and the last time was 1980,” Woolbright said. “We have the kind [of] prairie crawdad out here that builds mud chimneys, and we got to watch that curlew run its footlong bill down those chimneys to get the crawdads.”

His comments suggested that prairie visitors might bring a bird identification guide along with a wildflower guide.

“Of course, where you have lots of wildflowers, you get lots of butterflies,” Woolbright said.

Better bring one of those guides, too.

Chesney Prairie Natural Area glance

DESCRIPTION

The Chesney Prairie Natural Area near Siloam Springs is 60 acres of native tallgrass prairie owned by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and open to the public at no charge.

Vegetation includes more than 300 species of plants and trees, including many wildflowers. As many as 30 species can be found blooming at once, with new groups appearing monthly during spring and summer.

The prairie also is an excellent bird-watching area where 174 species of native and migratory birds have been identified. The profusion of wildflowers also attracts many species of butterflies.

DIRECTIONS

From Springdale, take U.S. 412 west toward Siloam Springs. On the edge of the city, take Arkansas 59 north two miles to County Road 6, or Chesney Road. Turn east on Chesney Road and go 0.8 mile to a lane beside a farmhouse. Turn north and go 0.5 mile to the prairie entrance.