Join the Iowa Native Plant Society for a Field Trip at Patton Prairie, a 45-acre prairie featuring high quality mesic and wet-mesic tallgrass prairie.
Mark J. Leoschke, botanist for the Wildlife Bureau of the DNR, will lead the walk among the summer prairie flora.
Patton Prairie is owned by the Buchanan County Conservation Board (T89N R8W Section 2 NW4).
DETAILS
Depending on how wet a summer we have this year it would not hurt to wear boots. Even in a wet year most of the prairie can probably be walked in gym shoes, but boots can be handy for looking at lower lying areas if summer happens to be wet.
DIRECTIONS
From Independence (county seat) go east on U.S. Highway 20 to the Winthrop/Quasqueton exit. Turn left (north) onto Racine Avenue (County Highway W40). Travel north about 0.5 mile to 220th Street (County Highway D22).Turn right (east) onto 220th Street. Travel about one mile to Slater Avenue (County Highway W45). Turn left (north) and travel 4 miles to 180th Street (going through the town of Winthrop. McElroy’s Food Market, 135 West Madison, on the north side of a main road through town and west of Slater Avenue, has ice, food or beverages if you need to stop to resupply your botanical expedition). Turn left (west) onto 180th Street. Travel approximately 1.5 miles to Quonset Avenue. Turn right (north) onto Quonset Avenue and travel approximately 1.8 miles to a parking lot just west of Quonset Avenue and south of a farmstead (park on Quonset Avenue if the parking lot is full).We will walk west from the parking lot to the prairie.