Prairie grasses keep most of their living biomass underground
Tallgrass and mixed-grass prairies look leafy above, yet often more than half — sometimes far more — of the plants’ living tissue is roots and rhizomes buried in deep soil.
Underground stores survive grazing, fire, and drought that scorch the canopy. When rain returns, buds push new shoots from reserves already in place.
A prairie’s real forest is upside down. The green sea you walk through is only the tip of a carbon-rich root world that holds the biome together.
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