Painted Prairie A prairie is an open grassland. It occurs in relatively dry climates where precipitation is too minimal to support trees. There are many kinds of prairies, each characterized by the types of plants growing there.
Prairies bloom from spring to fall.
Just one acre of tallgrass prairie in Minnesota can support as many as 200 species of plants. The difference between tallgrass prairies and grassland prairies is rainfall. Tallgrass requires more rainfall than grassland prairies to support the abundance and variety of prairie flowers. Minnesota once had 18 million acres of prairie. Today fewer than 150,000 acres of pure prairie remain The Birth of the Prairie Landscape Minnesota's current landscape is the result of glacial activity.