Iowa was once completely covered by prairie, but that native flora has been wiped off the map by the monocultures of corn and soybeans now covering 65 percent of the state’s land area. Less than 0.1 percent of Iowa’s original prairie remains, so discovering rare places where that original ecosystem survived a century of heavily industrialized agriculture is no small miracle. One such place is the “pioneer cemeteries,” or graveyards that have been relatively undisturbed since their occupants entered the pre-exploited prairie. According to the Iowa Prairie Network, there are 136 known cemetery prairies across the Midwest, and the Network is on the hunt for more. Some of those prairie remnants contain as many as 250 species. Almost all the land in Iowa is privately owned, and 60 percent of Iowa’s public land is just the ditches on the side of the roadway. Still, those roadside rights-of-way have seen samples from prairie remnants reintroduced in the 1990s. Some 50,000 acres of roadsides have been planted with native grasses and wildflowers.
Christian Elliott, Noēma
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