WEST UNION, Ohio - Adams County doesn't look or feel like other Ohio counties.
It is a slice of Kentucky's bluegrass country - with an open, airy feel unlike much of southern Ohio because of its unique geology. Early settlers referenced the region's bald hills or "buffalo beats."
Tucked along the Ohio River about 60 miles east of Cincinnati and at the western edge of the Appalachians, Adams County has some great outdoor attractions: the Serpent Mound, the 14,000-acre Edge of Appalachia Preserve and eight state nature preserves.
My most recent excursion into Adams County took me to Lynx Prairie within the Edge of Appalachia Preserve and to Chaparral Prairie State Nature Preserve.
The showcase Richard and Lucille Durrell Edge of Appalachia Preserve is one of the most biologically diverse collections of natural systems in the Midwest, with rugged woodlands, prairie openings, cliffs, waterfalls, giant promontories and clear streams.
It is the largest privately owned nature preserve in the Midwest and is a partnership between the Nature Conservancy and the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal.
Three areas within the preserve, with its 135 rare plants and animals, are open to the public: Buzzardroost Rock with its up-high views, the Wilderness with its deep woods and the biologically important Lynx Prairie.
The 500-acre Lynx Prairie is known for its unique and beautiful cedar glades or eastern alkaline barrens with its thin rocky soils. Three loop trails that together stretch 1.5 miles lead through Lynx Prairie, the first tract of the Edge preserve to be acquired 50 years ago.
Visitors will find 10 miniature prairies, surrounded by forests of Virginia pines and red cedar. They are mostly flat, narrow and wet in places. They are dominated by big and little bluestem and Indian grass. The grassland community features a number of rare plants for Ohio.
Each prairie patch is different. Some are dominated by prairie dock, another by coneflowers; another by rare Western sunflowers; another with blazing stars. Rare plants include blue-hearts, Texas sandwort, crested coralroot, crane-fly orchid, dwarf hackberry and spotted wintergreen.
Lynx Prairie with its dolomite and shale outcroppings honors the work of ecologist E. Lucy Braun (1889-1971), a University of Cincinnati professor who first explored Adams County for its rare plants.
The prairies here are at the eastern edge of the prairies that once dominated the Midwest.
The preserve's original 42 acres were purchased in 1959 by the Nature Conservancy, the national land-conservation group, with financial help from Cincinnati garden clubs. In 1967, the prairie patches at Lynx Prairie were designated a federal Natural Landmark.
The prairies are at their colorful best in late summer and early fall. By August, prairie grasses up to 9 feet tall and tall flowers dominate Lynx Prairie.
The most difficult part of the hike was finding where the trails into Lynx Prairie began, at the rear of the cemetery behind the East Liberty Community Church. Look in the southeast corner of the cemetery.
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