The prairie biome once occupied large stretches of the North American Midwest. At one time, an estimated 13% of Indiana was cloaked with diverse tall grass prairie or related grassland ecosystems.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, as agriculture spread through the region, our tall grass prairies with their deep, fertile topsoil were almost completely converted into productive farmland. As a result, only remnant prairie fragments remain, mostly in old cemeteries and along railroads. Today, for practical as well as aesthetic reasons, there is renewed interest in restoring tall grass prairie in some areas of the state.  These pages feature a 25-acre restoration site in Upland, Indiana and the typical plant species found in our native grassland ecosystems.