Talk:Prairie
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The difference between prairie and grassland might be enlarged on. Shouldn't they be discussed at one entry, perhaps? --Wetman 08:46, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Prairie is most applicable to native grassland types. In North America, these occur primarily between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, from north central Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The term is used at all landscape scales, and may refer to a very small, specific prairie remnant (such as Hoffman Prairie, in north, central Iowa, USA), or a very large area with specific physiographic features and vegetative communities, such as the sandhills prairie, in central Nebraska. The term is very general and requires modifiers when referring to a specific landscape feature or ecosystem. Regional maps showing the historic extent of prairie because of their scale fails to communicate that sizable prairies existed well east of what is typically delineated. Some types of native prairie landscapes are functionally extinct, existing only in heavily managed areas, such as the tallgrass prairie.
The image provided is not representative of prairie. It shows common reed (Phagmites australis) (arguably a non-native wetland plant) in the background and reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea) (an invasive Eurasian introduction) in the foreground.
