High on Goat Prairies

May 4, 2024

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

This past weekend we got high on goat prairies.  

That’s because goat prairies are high up on hillsides in southeastern Minnesota.  Also called bluff prairies, they’re found on the sunny southern and southwestern sides of bluffs and steep (very steep) hills, sort of like a prairie tilted on its side.  Although from a distance goat prairies may look sparse and bare, like other prairies they are rich in a variety of grasses and flowers. 

We try to be as sure-footed as goats as we carefully pick our way up the side of a goat prairie to the top and cautiously make our way back down, pausing to take in the view out over other hills, valleys, and rivers.  But the view right beneath our feet is stunning, too, and we  watch our feet closely as we climb to avoid  discovering just how well gravity works if we should trip or tumble. 

On a recent afternoon we clambered upward past a wealth of springtime wonder: wood betony blooming in whirligigs of yellow, bright orange puccoon, vivid magenta jeweled shooting star, columbine, downy paintbrush, birdfoot violet, pussytoes, yellow star-grass, and a just-beginning-to-bloom cream wild indigo with its cascade of elegant flowers. 

And that was only the front side of the hill.  The back side of a goat prairie usually faces north and east, and in that cooler, shadier–but still steep–habitat forests grow with their own assortment of native woodland wildflowers.  After our scramble up the front side of a goat prairie we followed an old road up the back side of another goat prairie past a mossy bank where walking fern made its way downward, showy orchis leaves opened like little vases, and downy rattlesnake plantain grew in a close community of distinctly patterned leaves.  Round-lobed hepatica’s shiny new leaves had already grown in, and more  large-flowered bellwort than we’ve ever seen before blanketed  the hillside.  

Is it any wonder that whenever we find a goat prairie, we can’t resist the climb?