The Flint Hills tallgrass prairie — the largest contiguous remnant of the original North American tallgrass prairie, covering a narrow north-south strip of eastern Kansas and the very northern Osage County in Oklahoma. The shallow flinty soils (limestone bedrock with chert layers) defeated the plow, leaving the prairie intact where the deeper soils of the Central Tallgrass region were converted. Annual ranchland fire keeps woody encroachment in check and is the load-bearing management practice.

At a glance

About the temperate grasslands, savannas & shrublands biome

Temperate prairies, steppes, and pampas of grasses and forbs with few trees, under continental climates of hot summers and cold winters. Their deep, fertile soils have made them among the most extensively converted biomes for agriculture.

National refinement sub-regions

What's native here

Catalog plants whose Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center native-distribution range overlaps the 2-state/province roster for this ecoregion. Distinct from the “suited” section below — these are plants that belong here, not just plants that will grow here.

Grain caveat: native here means “native to at least one state / province this ecoregion crosses,” not necessarily native to this ecoregion's specific habitat. A plant tied to wet meadows that crosses Ontario will surface for any Ontario-spanning ecoregion. Finer per-ecoregion native-status data is a future arc.

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 (1991-2020 climatology) via ArcGIS FeatureServer published current zone range, with the CHELSA mid-century warming delta applied for the projection. Plants whose stated range falls outside both the current and projected zone end up dropped; the rest land in one of the three buckets below.

Wildlife your native plants here support

Collections for this ecoregion

Curated multi-plant collections whose members all fit this ecoregion's zone range — no won't-grow members smuggled in. Overall fit class shown per collection is the weakest link across its members.

Related ecoregions