Where we walk
For the most part, when you step outside and onto a rock surface natural to the Ozarks, you walk on sedimentary rock of extraordinary ancient age. Underfoot, eroded by water and time, are limestone and dolomite calcareous sediments of ancient oceans accumulated from primitive creatures of the Paleozoic Era (251-542 million years ago), beginning during the Ordovician Period a mere 400 million years ago.
The rocks you step on formed when the sea levels receded and returned – the shores of shallow warm seas – that became exposed during the Mississippian Period starting about 350 million years ago. That’s 100 million years before dinosaurs walked on the planet! Continental collisions along the North and South American tectonic plates created volcanoes that spewed ash that interspersed with the sedimentary layers of limestone, dolomite and shale. Over millions of years that fine ash composed of microscopic silicate crystals compressed into interbedded layers of the limestone. We call that ancient volcanic ash – chert. Ozark sandstone is still older finely ground volcanic quartz.
About 30 million years after dinosaurs showed-up, flowering plants bloomed in the Ozarks. Now the Ozark Dome, uplifted from the slow-motion collision of continents, began to erode through the action of water, wind and rain, carving through the sediments creating the creeks, springs, bald knobs and glades that we know today.
This time of year, I love the flora of the glades. Glades or barrens, are areas of exposed bedrock with thin soil, usually dominated by non-woody plants. Mostly south- and west-facing slopes of exposed rock, plants growing in glades are drought tolerant during the heat of summer, and survive an abundance of water in the spring. Glades are threatened by development, grazing, and fire suppression. Glade plants thrive with periodic fire. Otherwise, red cedar encroaches the prairie-like habitat. Good examples of glades with encroaching red cedar are the three west-facing hillsides on the east edge of Lake Leatherwood.
Plants blooming in glades now or a little earlier include tall pink glade onion (Allium canadense var. lavandulare), Missouri primrose (Oenothera macrocarpa), pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida), yellow coneflower (Echinacea paradoxa), prickly pear (Opuntia cespitosa) wild hyacinth (Camassia scillioides) and the pennyroyal-like Arkansas calamint (Clinopodium arkansanum). These are just a few of some of the most beautiful Ozark wildflowers found in one our most iconic habitats. Get out for a hike on an ancient seabed and enjoy visually spectacular Ozark glades.