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As a fundraiser for the organizatons, I created CafePress stores with logo clothing, mugs, and bags for the Native Prairies Association of Texas (NPAT) and the Austin chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT).

NPSOT-NPAT 2007 Symposium store
Native Prairies Association of Texas (NPAT) store
Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT) – Austin chapter store

Show your love of Texas prairies and native plants by wearing these shirts while raising money for these worthy organizations.  Proceeds benefit NPAT and NPSOT-Austin in their respective missions.

The Blackland Prairie, part of Texas’ tallgrass prairies, once occupied 12 million acres of Texas, from the Red River near the Oklahoma border, south through Dallas, Waco, Temple, and Austin down to San Antonio.  The tall prairie grasses and flowers created extremely rich soils, which led to most of the Blackland Prairie being plowed for agriculture.

Perhaps only one-tenth of one percent of Texas’ beautiful Blackland Prairie remains in native hay meadows or places too rocky to plow, and many of these endangered places are slowly disappearing over time to the plow and development.

There are people who care about the prairie and search for remnants of the Blackland, hoping to find a special piece of what was and experience it as those who first came to Texas did and maybe even protecting some of the ever decreasing gems that remain.  Matt White is one of these people, and he tells an incredible tale of both destruction and hope in Prairie Time – A Blackland Portrait.
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