Postcards from the forest - down in the deer grass

Underneath the veil of last year's growth, spring is making its way to the surface in the deer grass meadow.

Native grasses are an enormously important part of our local ecosystem. They are vulnerable to disturbance and are often the first plants in an ecosystem to be compromised, often unintentionally, when we modify the environment for recreation and other purposes.

What's so great about deer grass? It's a perennial, staying more or less green all year (if not at the ends of the leaves of grass, at its core, and beneath the soil). It's root system holds moisture in the soil and its clumped manner of growing helps it survive periods of drought.

Open meadows are in and of themselves also a resource of immeasurable value, allowing rain and snow to percolate slowly back into the soil.

Deer grass was a vital resource to indigenous people in the area as it is a wonderful plant for making baskets and utensils. And it does not easily burn.

Deer grass, because it holds moisture, is not highly flammable like invasive grass species. It resists burning and is neither volatile nor easily wind-driven. This allowed native people to use fire as a means of maintaining the landscape in a much more manageable way than what we are faced with today.

The meadow in these pictures has not burned in many years. Therefor, the build-up of old grass is deep and thick. A low temperature fire in this meadow would improve the health of the grass by thinning the deadfall and allowing it to become fertilizer for the living plants underneath. Trimming has a similar effect, but since there are no longer communities using the grass, there is no one to keep it trimmed.

We'll return in a few weeks to see the transformation as the green grass pushes its way to the sunlight.

In the meantime, please support Redbird/Chilao School and the Forest Recovery Project by signing up with Amazon Smile, the charitable arm of Amazon. When you shop using Amazon Smile, Amazon donates on your behalf. There is no cost to you, ever. Signing up is simple! https://smile.amazon.com/ch/77...

To learn more about Redbird, please visit our website at www.RedbirdsVision.org