Missouri's Natural Legacy
(left) Shut-ins of Rocky Creek at Mill Mountain Natural Area (right) Blazing star blooms at Helton Prairie Natural Area
(left) Allred Lake Natural Area
(right) Pickle Springs Natural Area
(Left) Glade at Ha Ha Tonka Savanna Natural Area (right) Engelmann Woods Natural Area
(left) Jam Up Cave, Jacks Fork Natural Area
(right)
Grasshopper Hollow Natural Area
(left) Pickle Springs Natural Area (right) Blue Spring Natural Area
(left) Helton Prairie Natural Area
(right)
Stegall Mountain Natural Area
"... the traveler in the interior is often surprised to behold at one view, cliffs and prairies, bottoms and barrens, naked hills, heavy forests, and rocks ,and streams, and plains, all succeeding each other with rapidity and mingled with the most pleasing harmony."
- Henry Rowe Schoolcraft from the Journal of a Tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansas in 1818 and 1819.
Missouri has tremendous natural variety. Its gently rolling tall grass prairie of the southwest contrasts with the wetlands of southeastern Missouri. Its rivers, streams and springs often meet dramatic cliffs and extensive forests. Rocks estimated to be over one billion years old form the St. Francois Mountains. Two great rivers border and cross the state. The upper Mississippi delta in the southeast, with its once extensive bottom land hardwood forests and swamps, meets the edge of the Ozark highlands. The glaciated land north of the Missouri River and the unglaciated hills and plains to the south differ in composition of geology, soils, animals and plants. Missouri's diversity creates a landscape that is rich and beautiful.
Losing Our Original Landscape
The face of Missouri has changed greatly in the last 200 years. Vast acreages have felt the impact of agriculture, urban sprawl, highway construction, dams and reservoirs, mining, and stream channelization.
Why Are Natural Areas Important?
Natural areas are relatively healthy ecosystems. They are examples of wild ecosystems shaped through natural selection over thousands of years. These ecosystems are the source of plants and animals and other organisms that we have inherited. The Missouri Natural Areas System preserves some of the best examples of Missouri's great variety of natural terrestrial and aquatic communities and geologic features. They also provide essential habitat for threatened plants and animals. The system includes caves that provide habitat for endangered bats, prairie grassland reserves for our last flocks of prairie chickens, sandstone canyons where orchids, ferns and relict plants of Missouri's ice age grow, and glades that are home for desert-like plants and animals such as prickly pear cactus, tarantulas and scorpions.
Who Owns Natural Areas?
Missouri's natural areas are owned by the public and by private organizations. They are protected and managed by the Department Conservation, the Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City Parks Department, The Nature Conservancy, the L-A-D Foundation the Missouri Prairie Foundation, and the University of Missouri. Several natural areas are owned and voluntarily protected by private individuals and commercial corporations.
Major terrestrial and aquatic communities of Missouri are represented in the Natural Areas System, including forests, glades, springs, rivers and streams, savannas, wetlands, prairies and caves. Each community supports a different combination of plants, animals and microorganisms.
Glades are rocky openings that occur mainly on south and west slopes. They are usually intermingled with savannas and woodlands. Bedrock is at or near the land surface in glades, and the shallow soil layer supports dwarfed trees and non-woody plants.
Forests have distinct layers of vegetation: a dense tree canopy cover, an understory of smaller trees, shrubs and vines, and a ground cover of shade-tolerant nonwoody plants, lichens and mosses.
Wetland natural communities are periodically saturated or covered by water, and water-loving plants are dominant. In Missouri, wetland natural community types are marsh, fen, seep and swamp.
Caves are natural openings in the Earth's surface; many are formed when ground water dissolves limestone and dolomite. Indiana, gray, and other bat species have evolved adaptations to survive in the darkness and isolation of caves along with many species of fish, invertebrates and microorganisms.
Rivers and streams in Missouri support an abundance of plant and animal life, including 211 species of fish. Waterfalls, shut-ins, seasonal flooding and other action of water render streams dynamic forces of Missouri's landscape.
Springs are formed from a continual or intermittent natural flow of water from the ground. Plants and animals found at springs have adapted to the constant, cool temperature of the spring environment, and some species are restricted to single springs.
Prairies are extensive grasslands with a great diversity of wildflowers, few shrubs and scattered trees. More than 15 million acres of Missouri's landscape was once prairie.
Savannas are open woodlands with open-grown trees. They have no understory. Considerable light reaches the ground where many species of grasses and wildflowers grow.
Visiting Natural Areas
Most natural areas are open for public visitation. They remain undeveloped, although some feature hiking trails and boardwalks. look for the jack-in-the-pulpit emblem of the Missouri natural areas system on natural area boundary signs. If you would like a copy of the directory of Missouri natural areas, please contact:
Missouri Department of ConservationNatural History Section
P.O. Box 180
Jefferson City, MO 65102-0180
Missouri's Natural Areas Committee
The Missouri Natural Areas Committee (MoNAC) coordinates the statewide
system. The Department of Natural Resources and the Missouri Department
of Conservation co-administer the system, and representatives from the
National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service also serve on MoNAC.
The goal of MoNAC is to include the best examples of every remaining type
of natural community and geologic feature in the natural areas system.
MoNAC members are responsible for coordinating the classification, inventory,
designation and stewardship of the state's natural areas. After areas have
been located and their important features evaluated, MoNAC can consider
official designation of the sites as natural areas. Private lands can also
be considered with the owner's consent.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE MISSOURI NATURAL AREAS SYSTEM, PLEASE CONTACT:
Natural Areas CoordinatorMissouri Department of Conservation
P.O. Box 180
Jefferson City, Missouri 65102-0180
or
Natural Areas CoordinatorMissouri Department of
Natural Resources
P.O. Box 176
Jefferson City, Missouri 65102-0176
Photos by Jim Rathert, Tom Nagel, Paul Childress, John B. Moore and Tom R. Johnson.
