prairie
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CG: n

CT: Prairies are enormous stretches of flat grassland with moderate temperatures, moderate rainfall, and few trees.

When people talk about the prairie, they are usually referring to the golden, wheat-covered land in the middle of North America. The Great Plains, in the United States and Canada, has some of the world’s most valuable prairies, which grow some of the world’s most important crops. The U.S. states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan make up the Great Plains.

The prairies in North America formed as the Rocky Mountains grew taller and taller. They grew taller and taller because of plate tectonics, the process where a small number of plates on the Earth’s crust interact with each other. Once the mountains got tall enough, they blocked significant amounts of rain from falling on the east side of the mountains, creating what is called a rain shadow. This rain shadow prevented trees from growing extensively east of the mountains, and the result was the prairie landscape.

S: NatGeo – https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/prairie/ (last access: 25 April 2025)

N: 1. “tract of level or undulating grassland in North America,” by 1773, from French prairie “meadow, grassland,” from Old French praerie “meadow, pastureland” (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *prataria, from Latin pratum “meadow,” originally “a hollow,” a word of uncertain origin; de Vaan suggests PIE *prh-to- “allotted.”

The word existed in early Middle English as prayere, praiere, but was lost and reborrowed in 18c. from Hennepin and other French writers to describe the fertile but treeless parts of the American plains.

2.  prairie, level or rolling grassland, especially that found in central North America. Decreasing amounts of rainfall, from 100 cm (about 40 inches) at the forested eastern edge to less than 30 cm (about 12 inches) at the desertlike western edge, affect the species composition of the prairie grassland. The vegetation is composed primarily of perennial grasses, with many species of flowering plants of the pea and composite families. Most authorities recognize three basic subtypes of prairie: tallgrass prairie; midgrass, or mixed-grass, prairie; and shortgrass prairie, or shortgrass plains. Coastal prairie, Pacific or California prairie, Palouse prairie, and desert plains grassland are primarily covered with combinations of mixed-grass and shortgrass species.

  • Tallgrass prairie, sometimes called true prairie, is found in the eastern, more humid region of the prairie that borders deciduous forest. The rich soil is laced with the deep roots of sod-forming tallgrasses such as big bluestem and prairie cordgrass, or slough grass, in the wet lowlands and the shorter roots of bunchgrasses such as needlegrass, or porcupine grass, and prairie dropseed on the drier upland sites.

    Midgrass, or mixed-grass, prairie, supporting both bunchgrasses and sod-forming grasses, is the most extensive prairie subtype and occupies the central part of the prairie region. Species of porcupine grass, grama grass, wheatgrass, and buffalo grass dominate the vegetation. Sand hills are common in the western portion bordering the shortgrass plains.

  • Shortgrass plains occupy the driest part of the prairie and are covered primarily by species of buffalo grass and grama grass. Kentucky bluegrass, although not a native prairie species, is found in all three major prairie subtypes.

    The bison, wolf, and most prairie chickens have disappeared from the prairie; but the coyote, prairie dog, jackrabbit, badger, horned lark, meadowlark, and various species of hawks and waterfowl are still common. Insects also are abundant, especially grasshoppers and flies.

    In the past, a combination of high summer temperatures, strong winds, late summer drought, and accumulations of dead vegetation set the stage for many naturally caused fires, which prevented trees from becoming abundant in prairie vegetation. Now the fertile prairie soils (brunizem, chernozem, chestnut, and brown soils) are intensely cultivated (primarily corn in the eastern part and wheat in the central area) or grazed (especially the shortgrass region), and little native prairie remains, other than in small protected patches.

3. Biogeography; Ecosystems: grassland, prairie.

  • Natural regions dominated by grasses or grasslike plants, with few trees, and those mostly near streams and ponds.
  • Grassland is one of the world’s major life zones, or biomes, occupying the large middle ground between desert and forest.
  • grassland; prairie: designations used by Parks Canada.

Plant and Crop Production; Animal Feed (Agric.): grassland, grazing land.

  • A land covered grass used for the feeding of animals, either by harvesting or grazing, or both.

4. Place Names (Canada); Place Names (outside Canada): Prairies

  • The great, almost treeless, plain that covers much of central North America.
  • An unofficial designation, an ungazetteered toponym.

5. Toponymy; Geomorphology and Geomorphogeny: prairie.

  • Area of flat or gently rolling grassland; larger than a meadow and often extensive.
  • Grande Prairie, Alta.
  • Used in Man., Alta., B.C., and N.W.T.
  • prairie: term validated by the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (CPCGN) within the scope of its glossary (BT-176) which is the first authoritative publication on generics in use in Canada.
  • prairie: term used at Natural Resources Canada – Earth Sciences Sector.

6. Cultural Interrelation: We can mention a novel and a TV serie respectively.

  • The Prairie: A Tale (1827) written by James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851).
  • Little House on the Prairie (1974-1983) created by Blanche Hanalis.

S: 1. Etymonline – https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=prairie (last access: 25 April 2025). 2. EncBrit – https://www.britannica.com/science/prairie (last access: 25 April 2025). 3 to 5. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 25 April 2025). 6. GR – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6508767 (last access: 25 April 2025); IMDb – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071007/ (last access: 25 April 2025).

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CR: biome, ecology, forest, jungle, savanna, silviculture, steppe, taiga, tropical rainforest, tundra.