Community Corner
St. Louis Proud: Shaw Nature Preserve-Go Visit!
About 40 miles west of St. Louis, a sea of yellow lies just on the other side of a wall.
April 01, 2021
About 40 miles west of St. Louis, a sea of yellow lies just on the other side of a wall. The Shaw Nature Preserve dates back to 1925, when the Missouri Botanical Garden bought five farms comprising about 1,300 acres. “And the intent at that time was to move the entire botanical garden out here to Gray Summit, Missouri, because industrial air pollution posed a serious threat to the living collections of the botanical garden,” said Quinn Long, Shaw Nature Reserve director.
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But over the years, the air quality in St. Louis improved. “But in the intervening years the nature reserve has also grown in size and shifted its focus from non-native plant collections from around the world to restoring and preserving native biodiversity,” said Long. Named after Henry Shaw, this place has a lot to offer. "We have a diversity of natural communities, prairies, woodlands, glades, wetlands and three and a half miles of the Meramec River flow through our property," described Long.
