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A fen is a beautiful, freshwater wetland swarming with life. The water in a fen is hard and alkaline, with small amounts of dissolved limestone, or dolomite rock in it. The plants and animals not common in the dry neighboring valleys of the fen, thrive in the wet, mineralized ground.
In the Ozarks of Missouri, fens were originally called “calcareous meadows,” because of this mineralized hard water, and their significance was first recognized in 1938. Grasshopper Hollow Fen, in Reynolds County, Missouri, is the largest complex of several fens, an considered a rare, wild treasure. There are three types of fens: the prairie fen, the deep muck fen, and the forested fen.
The prairie fen is made up of valley terraces of streams and rivers. Threatened by grazing and drainage, a prairie fen is an extremely rare environment. The constant internal seepage keeps the shallow soil moist. Tall prairie grass, sedges, ferns, and herbs thrive in a prairie fen. Cord grass, Indian grass, Culvert’s root, prairie dock and mountain mint are the dominant plants here, and this type of fen is easy to navigate.
The deep mMuck fens usually occur in valleys on the toeslope of hills. A deep muck fen has saturated, boglike, deep soft soil, saturated with mucky peat. This kind of a fen would be difficult to explore on foot. Ponds are typical in this type of fen, as is flooding. Swamp dogwood, common alder, silky willow, royal fern and sedges make up the vegetation of the area. An extremely rare occurrence, a deep muck fen has to be protected from drainage, road construction, and grazing.
Another very rare fen is the forested fen, found in terraces or flood plains. In a forested fen, soil drainage is poor, and it can be anywhere from saturated to moist from calcareous seepage and rainwater. Bottomland hardwoods, shrubs and vines coexist with sedges, ferns, herbs and mosses. Green ash, red maple, blue beech, slippery elm and persimmon are the usual dominant plants.
Grasshopper Hollow fen in southern Reynolds County of Missouri, is a prairie fen, and is considered the largest fen complex in unglaciated North America. A field research in 1981 established the true nature of Grasshopper Hollow fen in 1981. That’s when it was discovered that Grasshopper Hollow fen is a 300 acre complex of 15 individual fens. One of those is a 14 acre prairie fen that is now considered the best preserved fen of its type in the world.
They say in this prairie fen alone, 179 species of plants are growing in the tallgrass prairie environment. Some of these rare plants are the heart-leaf plantain, wild sweet William, which is considered and endangered plant, tussock sedge, marsh bellflower and the beautiful marsh blue violet. Two of the rare animals also found here are the four-toed salamander and the rare wood frog.
When the Conservation Department of Missouri found that the land was owned by a mining company, an eventual deal was made. The mining company agreed to lease some of the land to The Nature Conservancy, so that it could be preserved for future generations.
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