In the Country of the Kaw: A Personal Natural History of the American Plains

Abstract

The prologue describes his boy-hood days traveling in Kansas and Colorado noting the rivers, and following his dad on fishing trips. The author describes his college days at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Missouri, and his interest in botany. This led to his work experience at Dyck Arboretum of the Plains in Hesston, Kansas, the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum, and Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha, Nebraska.

The Headlands chapter introduces the reader to the rivers in Kansas, for example, the Smoky Hill, Saline, Republican, and Kaw with tributaries finally reaching the bigger Missouri River. The author takes the reader through the High Plains and a description of the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest body of ground fossil water in the U.S.A. Many years of irrigation in western Kansas has significantly lowered water levels of the Ogallala water table. Here is where the author describes playas as a landform consisting of shallow depressions lined with soils of a higher clay content that holds water creating ephemeral wetlands attracting waterfowl.