Photo by Ray Zimmerman.
Although I recall only two protected natural areas that harbored lovely wildflowers and a steep climb to the top of an escarpment, today the Edge of Appalachia Preserve is a series of ten nature preserves with a modern visitor center and developed hiking trails. My visits in the spring of 1988 are forever memories, but I may revisit the area and see what has become of the preserve.
I also recall farms that produced hogs, corn, soybeans, and, surprisingly, tobacco when I lived there briefly in 1988. Adams County, at the time, had the largest land mass and the smallest population of all Ohio counties. I explored its geography from sandstone ridges to farmland to the Ohio River’s floodplain. Though native to the state, I was surprised to learn that parts of Ohio are considered Appalachian. Several counties proudly claim that designation. I explored the Edge of Appalachia Preserve System developed by the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, now part of the Museum Center.
Buzzardroost Rock is one of those preserves. Like a sentry, it sits atop a sandstone ridge overlooking the surrounding prairies and farmlands. I have watched vultures arrive at this outcrop. The hills and valleys may lack the stunning altitude of mountains, but nature shaped a lovely landscape here.
I have imagined black and turkey vultures nesting on ledges below the ridge, just as their nests are described in bird guides, but I have never observed such nests. The plateau is, however, named roost, and not nest. Birds frequently nest and roost in separate areas.
Aside from Buzzardroost Rock I also explored Lynx Prairie. Who could have given these places such names, which embed themselves in the brain and are recalled with a chuckle years later?
In spring the first flowers of the Redbud trees clothed the landscape in regal majesty. Soon, the white of Flowering Dogwood spoke to me of springtime renewal. When I arrived at my adopted home in Tennessee I found them here too. For me, they are a symbol of springtime.
Large-flowered Trillium, with its white blossoms, covered the Ohio woodlands before the trees leafed out. Columbine and Shooting Star populated the edge where prairie met woodlands. In spring, the ground was a blaze of red and white.
I found Hoary Puccoon, a dark green plant with dull gold flowers growing among the Prairie Dock. Later in the year, the typical plants of open spaces appeared in red and purple, sunflower, coneflower, Jerusalem Artichoke, and various goldenrods. In the fall, gentians graced the openings, their petite purple blossoms rose above the morning dew.
But Buzzard Roost rises above flatlands to the west, solidly agricultural and undergirded by glaciated limestone. To the east is a small portion of unglaciated limestone, protected from the glacier by a sandstone ridge. This is where I found the prairie, the only unglaciated limestone prairie in the northeastern United States, so far as I know.
Witnessing such rare and unique beauty I might recite a portion of “The Canticle of Brother Sun,” borrowing the words of St. Francis of Assisi:
Praised be you our Lord Through our sister Mother Earth Who governs and sustains us, And produces various fruits With colored flowers and herbs.
He praises his Lord through Brother Sun, Sister Moon and the stars, Brothers Wind and Air, Sister Water, Brother Fire, and even sister bodily death. A walk through a natural area with such poetry speaks to my spirit.
On one visit to Lynx Prairie, the smell of charred vegetation led me to one Prairie opening where the grass had burned. Likely this was a prescribed burn, conducted by the managers, to preserve the prairie. The trees and shrubs of the surrounding forest drop their seed, sometimes carried by animals into the prairie openings. Woody plants invade, and the only way to maintain the prairie is removal, either by mowing or burning. Rooted shrubs and saplings quickly rebound from mowing, so a prescribed burn is preferred.
As spring progressed, I saw both blue-eyed grass and yellow-eyed grass. Although these plants have the strap-leaved shape of grasses, their flowers give them away. They are not grass at all, bearing five-pointed blue or yellow flowers.
I could watch the butterflies of brilliant hue for hours as they came to the prairie to gather nectar. Tiger, Zebra, and Spicebush Swallowtails were most abundant. Some gathered nectar from the roadside vetch lining the parking lot. I celebrate the vetch, which some would call a weed. It is a legume, and enriches the soil with nitrogen it gathers from the air, fertilizing the soil, and giving us beauty for years to come.
A few years later, I revisited the prairie and encountered a field trip of the Xerxes Society, dedicated to the study and preservation of butterflies. A Diana, with deep blue wings, had caught their attention.
That spring established the prairie as a place of magnificence in my mind. In addition to the large-flowered trillium, the woods surrounding the fragmented prairie were alive with bloodroot, spiderwort, and twinleaf. Wildflower enthusiasts visiting the area would be well advised to stop at Lynx Prairie.
Another summer, I visited Adams Lake, a small lake behind a dam near West Union. A planted prairie at that location was home to wild sunflowers with small yellow discs, quite different from the domestic variety. From a distance, I witnessed the flowers moving unnaturally. In turns, the stalks bent down with the flower nearly touching the ground. The stalk would abruptly straighten, and the flower reached back toward the sun. As I walked closer the movement continued. I looked with binoculars and discovered the cause of the motion. A flock of goldfinches was working the flowers. Each yellow bird landed on a yellow flower, and the stalk bent under the weight. Then the bird lifted off and the flower shot skyward.
Today, when I do my morning stretches, I reach sunward, just as those sunflowers stretched on that fine morning. I face the rising sun, unlike the Great Serpent which faces the setting sun. I celebrate the wild Columbine near my home here. A spring without wildflowers is unthinkable to me.
North of these features, but still in Adams County lies another unique feature, the prehistoric Serpent Mound.
Great Serpent, you sit upon a hilltop as silent as the now dead hands that built you. With a core of rock, you held no hidden treasure, no artifacts or bones to delight the archaeologists who excavated you. So why do you sit upon this hill facing the setting sun, your body covered with mown grass, as I will someday be? Only the low hillsides below have room for native plants such as the Large Flowered Trilliums.
You are the Serpent Mound, the world’s largest serpent effigy, though smaller ones are found in Canada and Scotland. Archaeologists are uncertain as to who built you. Some say people of the Adina Culture shaped your earthen body, while others claim it was the Fort Ancient Culture, named for a village site surrounded by a stone boundary wall. Ohio is rich in pre-contact cultural sites.
Those who deem proprietary values important would remind me that the Ohio History Connection holds the deed to this land. You are perhaps the best-known feature of Adams County, Ohio, but with your patience, I will depart from your story and tell other stories.
But Great Serpent, off to the northeast of this ridge and prairie, you hold precedence in this landscape, Winding like the giant snake you represent. You open your mouth to swallow an egg or is that mound the moon or sun? It is not circular but could be either.
Could you be just an icon? Are you a symbol of the primal force of nature, always eating, digesting, and reproducing? You lack the wings of Central American serpent icons and European Dragons.
This video explains how the Serpent Mound could have been used to forecast the summer and winter solstice and the vernal and autumnal equinox.
Very interesting. I must confess that I had never thought of Ohio as a state that would have a lot of wildflowers and beautiful butterflies. The areas you describe sound so beautiful. I also found your comments about the Serpent Mound to be fascinating!