Saving Rare Plants in Remnant Grasslands

We are excited to announce our new Grassland Stewardship program! Piedmont grasslands are the most diverse plant communities in Virginia, even more diverse than the famous Midwestern tallgrass prairies. Piedmont grasslands also host at least 27 species of plants that are threatened with extinction in Virginia or even globally. The small patches of remnant grasslands that remain are vanishing, being sprayed with herbicide or allowed to grow up into forests before we can even document what’s living there. But we are working to save these irreplaceable relics of the past before they are lost. 

Thanks to the generous support of the Raines Family Fund, Nick Lapham, the Wrinkle in Time Foundation, and Jen and Brian Krebs, earlier this year we were able to hire our first ever Grassland Steward, Heather Poyner. Heather is saving rare plants by educating private landowners, public-lands managers, and utility companies, and by doing management on the ground. 

Heather has already made concrete progress in eight priority grasslands in the northern Piedmont. Two accomplishments are especially of note:

• First, Heather worked with Camron Robertson at the Dept. of Wildlife Resources to develop a plan to convert a fire-deprived forest to a savanna at C. F. Phelps Wildlife Management Area. The special plants at this site are found under a power line and along a gas pipeline. The long-term solution to the degradation of remnant prairies like this one is to thin and burn adjacent forests, so that the rare full-sun plants can expand to an area that’s not managed by the utility companies. Heather worked with staff from our partner, the Piedmont Discovery Center, on May 14th on a formal plant survey so that we can measure the effectiveness of the savanna conversion.

• Second, Heather met the owner of the Beautiful Run Road grassland in Madison County to show him the rare plants (Critically Imperiled Basil Mountain-mint and Imperiled Torrey’s Mountain-mint) in the remnant grassland on his property. The landowner agreed to allow our colleague Rebeca Sanchez-Burr to remove invasive plants and install No Mow signs along the road to prevent VDOT from mowing at the wrong time. The No Mow signs were set up on May 1st and Rebeca recently began removing invasive plants.

Heather says: “I’m excited to show people how special our native grasslands are. Grasslands are often overlooked, especially in the eastern U.S., but their ecological significance and subtle beauty are unmatched.” 

Grassland Steward Heather Poyner flagging old-growth oaks to be saved in the savanna conversion project at Phelps Wildlife Management Area. Devin Floyd photo.

Newly placed no-mow signs at Beautiful Run Road.

Redring Milkweed is one of the special plants found at the Beautiful Run Road grassland.