I’m sure many of you are as tired of this blog as I am. The same old nature photos, natural history, prairie management/restoration information… It just drones on and on. Honestly, I don’t know how you manage to drag your eyes through most of my posts. How much prairie stuff can one person read about, after all?
(…Yes, I’m kidding – there is no limit to how much prairie information one person can read about. And I am not at all tired of this blog… though you certainly might be, I don’t know.)
Well, the blog isn’t going away anytime soon (why, what have you heard??) But in an effort to keep it from growing stale, I’m introducing a new feature called “The Prairie Word of the Day.” …Yes, I know – a titillating title, isn’t it? It ought to be, it took me about three months to refine it. It’s pithy, catchy, and descriptive all at once. Or at least descriptive.
As with any field, prairie ecology is full of jargon; words that make sense to those of us who spend most of our waking hours thinking about prairies but make no sense to anyone else. I try hard not to use to much prairie jargon in my posts, but I slip up now and then. Sorry about that. There are a lot of fun, but confusing, prairie jargon words out there, so I thought I’d highlight one now and then and try to explain what it means. I would love to hear nominations from you as well – what undecipherable words do I or others use when talking or writing about prairies?
Ok, without further ado, the inaugural Prairie Ecologist Blog Prairie Word of the Day is:
Tiller
Sure, everyone knows what a tiller is, right? You use it to prepare your garden for planting. Or, if you are a pirate, you might use it to steer your ship. (If you are a pirate and read this blog, PLEASE let me know. Prairie-loving pirates is a demographic I would love to reach out to.)
However, if you are REALLY into prairies or botany, you might be familiar with a third definition; one that is related to grasses.
Although it is used somewhat inconsistently, a tiller usually refers to the aboveground shoot of a grass. In other words, if you were to look closely at a grass plant you’d see that most of them have multiple stems at their base. Each of those stems is a tiller. Usually, the term tiller only applies to shoots that emerge from buds at the base of other tillers, not from seeds. Thus, when a grass seed germinates and starts to grow, the first shoot that pops out of the ground is not a tiller. It’s just a shoot. I guess. But after that, every new shoot that comes out of the ground from that plant is a tiller.
Tillers are primarily important, as far as I can tell, because professors like to make graduate students count them. As in, “Hey Sara, take this 1 x 1 meter plot frame out to that prairie, lay it down and count the number of grass tillers inside it. (snicker) Then do that 99 more times. (guffaw!) Then we’ll move on to the next prairie.”
The tillers of this bunchgrass are all bunched together.
A related botanical prairie word is “sward” which basically means a bunch of grass. Well, not really a “bunch” because that’s its own term (grasses like little bluestem are called bunch grasses because they grow their tillers tightly together and look neat and tidy, as opposed to grasses such as prairie sand reed that across the prairie like they own the place). A better way to describe a sward, then, is that it’s an area of grass. However, I don’t think there’s any restriction on how big that area of grass has to be, which makes the term less useful. That’s probably why you don’t hear it used very often. Except by grassland poets trying to rhyme something with “charred”. As in, “Lo, the land was black and charred. No trees remained throughout the sward.”
There are numerous tillers in this sward. Too many to count – even for a graduate student.
If botanists were funny, they might say something like, “Arrr, Matey! Take over the tiller smartly while I decide whether to shoot this lubber or run him through with my sward.”
(I’m kidding, of course. Botanists can be very funny. Sometimes on purpose. Also, many are quite hirsute. Except on top, where some are pretty glabrous.)
Well anyway, that concludes the first ever installment of The Prairie Word of the Day. I hope it was instructive. Please nominate terms (in the comments section below) you’d like to see included in future Word of the Day posts and I’ll try to use as many as I can.
The Prairie Ecologist 
Never get tired of learning about things to which I have no knowledge! Thanks Chris!
I love learning bits of things that I might never have any use for – other than for writing poetry, which I do on occasion (but seldom rhyming, so…). Your couplet was quite nice, BTW! I think you should challenge yourself to use each PWOTD in every subsequent post so that it will sink in for your readers.
You have a marvelous sense of humor, but I’m not sure the botanists will think so. And I learned one more thing, the runner between the tillers is a rhizome. Maybe I’m not totally clear on what “rhizome” means. If I run into any pirates I’ll steer them in your direction, they don’t know what they’re missing. :)
I nominate the word “ligule” for a future post. It’s always been one of my favorite plant words.
LOL Who knew botanists could be so facetious!
After a long day of teaching children, I look forward to what I’ll learn through your posts, not to mention, what I’ll get to laugh at, too! Thanks!
Apparently you didn’t hear about the Last Saskatchewan Pirate when you were in Saskatoon in February!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G_L9tXEwmc The original song is by Arrogant Worms, but this is a remake by Captain Tracker. Cheers!
Caitlin MrozSaskatchewan Prairie Conservation Action PlanP.O. Box 4752Regina, SKS4P 3Y4Cell: 306.298.7886Like us on Facebook!
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:04:13 +0000 To: caitlinmroz@hotmail.com
“Shatter.” I remember using this term in a re-vegetation report for my boss at a uranium mining company and he made me take it out because it sounded negative. It just means that a study transect in summer is not going to capture information about spring-blooming plants because they’ve already disappeared.
I am so glad I got in on the “ground” floor of this series of posts!
I was glad to find out you were kidding, because I look forward every post to your latest grassland lore. And while I knew what a sward was (being a poet myself), I was vague on tiller (except for the pirate version). Thanks! And keep it going.
I figured out a long long time ago that botanists love
words. Some also love numbers. But if you don’t love words, botany is not for you. I’m going to enjoy Words of the Day.
I never thought I would laugh so much at a post about grass. You slay me (with your sward).
My favorite word is apical meristem.
Prairie geeks untie or unite! It’s been a long winter and humor can help repair or retire us.
As a gardener, I would not use sward but instead call it a clumping grass vs spreading or invasive.
I nominate the word “insects” to the prairie word of the day
I did fly the jolly rogers on my sail boat for about 15 years. Hubby wouldn’t let me mount a cannon on the bow like I wanted.
Would that qualify me as a “Prairie Pirate”?
Neat learning prairie terminology from you, Chris! Fun and never cormmy. : )
How about “corm”. We readers are like tiller, growing with knowledge from yours.
This is pretty funny & a cool idea if we wanted to include a link in our newsletter. I’ll just keep shooting ideas your way and please know that I will not be offended if you don’t include them!
Natasha Wilkie SK PCAP Manager Box 4752, Regina, SK, S4P 3Y4 Ph: (306) 352-0472 – Cell: (306) 530-7233 Fax: (306) 569-8799 pcap@sasktel.net – http://www.pcap-sk.org Twitter: @SaskPCAP
Our Vision: Healthy native prairie ecosystems as vital parts of our vibrant and strong communities. Prairie Conservation & Endangered Species Conference – February 16-18, 2016 – Saskatoon, SK – http://www.pcesc.ca
Speaking of hirsute, I could see a whole series of posts on all the synonyms for hairy: tomentose, hispid, pilose, strigose, and many more. My book on Plant Identification Terminology (by Harris and Harris–I highly recommend it) has 6 whole pages!
A Prairie King
When I sally forth to read prairie
I help myself right regally.
Camera never leaving hand
I freeze minutely images grand.
I fritillary my day, it’s true,
When shooting monarchs ought to do;
But many a write of a first-class tome,
Would never be written if not for roam.
Seeking evidentially,
To prove improved diversity.
For I am a Prairie King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Prairie King!
Oh, better far to snap and scribe
The great grass ocean, verdant or dried,
And watch as battles are lost or won,
By spiders or bees on Erigeron.
Than wade paper oceans that mound a desk
Or screen email crises or reassign tasks.
Yes, come with me and listen to song,
Of big blue stem humming and sing along,
There’s nothing so fine and nowhere so grand
As a prairie, with meadowlark leading the band.
Oh, I am a Prairie King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Prairie King!
Teresa Lombard
Excellent Teresa
Ha,ha -thanks. I love this blog. It’s always inspirational in some way, and your post had lyrics from Pirates of Penzance rollicking in my brain. One thing just led to another…
As this is the International Year of Soils, it would be fitting to profile Mollisols, the soil order that owes its characteristics to the exceptional ability of grasses to sequester carbon in the ground.
Oh, no, soils have orders? :)
awesome colluvial; we need to more widely promote the use of long-lived perennials providing even greater carbon sequestration than trees with their more obvious biomass.
Good discussion. Funny too. I nominate ‘rhizomatous’. It’s a natural follow-up. It relates to other important terms, such as ‘colonial’ and ‘cespitose’ or ‘bunch’, and has at least a couple meanings.
ecotype seems an important topic given problems with climate disruption; though I see it used two ways: an assemblage of plants in a region vs. the way I prefer to use it: subsets of a species based on local climate. Of course, that is one of the values of your blog, you can present both and get some feedback from your impressively broad and deep audience (whether their apical meristem is hirsute or glabbrous)
Hear, hear for “ecotype”!
We believe that you alone, Chris, will have the power to dispel the rampant misuse of this term!
In the nursery industry it usually refers to plant material from a certain county or state of origin, as in Sand County ecotype versus Clay County ecotype. It’s loosely based on your second meaning, but misses the mark by a long shot.
since “Prairie Word of the Day” & “Prairie Ecologist” are so widely read, perhaps we could make his word LAW what is the correct definition and usage. Those violating the rules will be punished by having to pull exotics for a day from restoration closest to the offender. Minimizing travel maximizes best return on volunteer’s time investment.
Hi Chris, I’d say this qualifies as your most humorous blog post yet. I’m looking forward to reading more “words of the day”.
Nominate mutualism, culm, stipule. I also second the suggestion on something related to soils – but maybe ‘sequester’?
“Sward” is an unusual word, and hearing it immediately reminded me of one of my favorite Monty Python sketches: http://www.songlyrics.com/monty-python/dennis-moore-lyrics/
How about the word “glumes” — surely pirates sail in the glumes of night!
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