JULY 2015 • NEBRASKAland 47
themselves unpalatable to grazing
animals, or produce thick fibrous
tissues that are difficult to bite, chew
and digest. A number of them also
invest in rapidly-growing long taproots
and other features that help them
thrive in soil too dry for many of their
competitors.
As a result, in the aftermath of a
season of drought, intensive grazing,
summer wildfire or flooding, the
landscape often erupts in a spectacular
display of color. These kinds of
flower shows have been happening for
many thousands of years and provide
evidence that natural communities
are healthy and resilient. Flushes of
colonizing plants provide vital short-
term supplies of food and habitat
for wildlife and pollinators. Dense
patches of relatively fibrous or bad-
tasting plants also provide weakened
grasses a safe place to hide from large
grazing animals during their vulnerable
recovery period.
Most importantly, despite being
labeled as weeds and disparaged as
unproductive and useless, colonizing
plants fade away as the conditions
that enabled them disappear. They are
not competitive under good growing
conditions; they are easily pushed aside
by dominant grasses and other strong
perennial plants.
Trying to eliminate "weedy" plants
during or after droughts, intensive
grazing bouts, or other similar events
doesn't bring back "desirable"
plants any faster; it just favors more
colonizers. Rather than fighting against
floral explosions we should celebrate
them the same way we would if they
were people. Remember? Pioneers.
Trailblazers. Colonizers. ■
Historically,
there were four
major forces
that could stop
those dominating
occupiers: fire,
grazing, drought
and flooding.
The big yellow four-point evening primrose (far left) is a biennial, and upright prairie coneflower (yellow/dark tops) and hoary
vervain (purple) are perennials that respond very quickly from seed when grasses are weakened. This site had been grazed
intensively during the previous year. It was not being grazed during the year of the photo but the tallgrasses were still short and
weak – leaving abundant space for these showy colonizers.
Chris Helzer is the Eastern
Nebraska Program Director for the
Nature Conservancy. He has been a
contributor to NEBRASKAland since
1994. See his other story in this issue
about milkweed plants on page 40.
