meadow

Quamash meadow near Bovill, Idaho

A meadow is a habitat of rolling or flat terrain where grasses predominate. Typically, what is called a meadow has more biodiversity than a grassland as the former contains not only grasses but a significant variety of annual, biennial and perennial plants.

Transitional meadows

A transitional meadow occurs when a field, pasture, farmland, or other cleared land is no longer farmed or heavily grazed and starts to overgrow. However meadow conditions do not persist in the long term, because the early colonizers will be shaded out when woody plants become well-established.

In North America prior to European colonization, Algonquian, Iroquois and other Native American people regularly cleared areas of forest to create transitional meadows where deer could find nutrition and be hunted. Many places named "Deerfield" are located at sites where Native Americans once practiced this form of land management.

Perpetual meadow

A perpetual meadow is one in which environmental factors restrict the growth of woody plants indefinitely. For example:

• Alpine meadows occur at high elevations and are maintained by harsh climatic conditions
• Coastal meadows are maintained by salt sprays
• Desert meadows are restricted by low precipitation
• Prairies are maintained by periods of severe drought and are subject to wildfires
• Wet meadows are semi-wetland areas saturated with water throughout much of the year.

Usage in Britain

In British agriculture and ecology, the term meadow is commonly used in its original sense to mean grassland mown for hay (Old English mædwe). "Pasture" is used for land which is primarily grazed, which may also include non-grassland habitats such as heathland, moorland and wood pasture. "Grassland" is used to include both meadow and grass pasture.

See also

• Coastal plain
• Field
• Flooded grasslands and savannas
• Flood-meadow
• Grassland
• Pasture
• Plain
• Plateau
• Prairie
• Rangeland
• Savanna
• Steppe
• Tundra
• Water-meadow
• Wet meadow
• Veld

References

• Cornell University
• The Washington Post, "Today, 32,000 seedlings; tomorrow, a meadow"

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Meadows

• Meadow Planting

Donate to Wikimedia