Eastern Subhumid Prairie
Photo by R.R. Summerhill
The Kansas Flint Hills remain as the only extensive area of tallgrass prairie in the eastern Great Plains. Largely because of the rocky soils, most of the region has escaped the plow and exists now as the home of domestic livestock. Fire was an important ecological force in shaping the composition of the varied plant communities that exist there, favoring warm-season perennial grasses and their attendant wildflower populations. Big bluestem and indiangrass dominate those plant communities, with other tall- and midgrasses being subordinate. The landscape varies rugged, rocky hillsides to flat or rolling uplands to lowland stream areas. That diversity in topography and the many soil types that develop results in a large number of different plant communities.
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