Slightly over a century ago, the tallgrass prairie in North America stretched over most of what is now Iowa, Illinois, southern Minnesota, northern Missouri, and the eastern edges of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Today, only a few scattered patches--less than one percent--remain of the endless, flat, silent land that greeted the pioneers and finally fell to their plows. Konza, an area of over 8,600 acres in the Flint Hills in Kansas, is the largest remaining undisturbed tract of tallgrass prairie in the nation.

Konza Prairie is the extraordinary and often lyrical story of...

This luminous volume offers a rich feast of words and images depicting nature's unexpected beauty in Kansas. With a keen ecological sense, O. J. Reichman and Steve Mulligan present a breathtaking reminder of the state's remarkable natural heritage.

Reflecting the marvelous alchemy of earth, wind, fire, and water enacted over countless centuries, Reichman's meditative text and Mulligan's stunning color photographs reveal a wondrously diverse state. Ranging across both widely known and unfamiliar forests and prairies, rivers and lakes, geological formations and botanical splendors, they...