Flora of Delaware and the Eastern Shore 



region of the Alleghenies. In the following pages it will usually be 

 referred to as "the Piedmont." 



The boundary between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain is 

 known as the "Fall Line." This term is somewhat vague, since 

 frequently the "line" becomes a band or zone, from two to four 

 miles wide in our area, across which the streams descend rather 

 rapidly from the quiet levels of the Piedmont meadows to sea-level, 

 and within which abundant water-power is available. Thus, in the 

 valley of Brandywine Creek, between Rockland and tidewater, an 

 airline distance of about four miles, the total fall is 140 feet, while in 

 the three miles of the same stream, from the Pennsylvania line 

 down to Rockland, the fall is only about twenty feet. 



The term "Fall Line" is here used in its narrow sense, to mean 

 the inner boundary of the Coastal Plain; that is, the line at which 

 the streams approximately reach the tidewater level. This line 

 cuts across the northern part of our Peninsula from near the mouth 

 of the Susquehanna River to the city of Wilmington, thence follow- 

 ing a course roughly parallel to the Delaware River, and within a 

 mile or two of its shore, and crosses the state line near Claymont. 

 It follows rather closely the right-of-way of the Baltimore and Ohio 

 Railroad through Cecil and New Castle Counties. Thus the 

 Peninsula is divided into two provinces of very unequal size, with 

 about 250 square miles, north of the Fall Line, referable to the 

 Piedmont, and 5800 square miles south of that line, to the Coastal 

 Plain.* 



The Piedmont Plateau. North of the Fall Line the land rises 

 progressively, in Delaware reaching a height of about 440 feet at 

 Centreville, and again along the state Hne about three miles east of 

 Brandywine Creek. The highest point on the Peninsula is near 

 Rock Springs in northwestern Cecil County, where an altitude of 

 540 feet is reached. 



The relatively narrow strip of Piedmont occupying the part of 

 our territory north of the Fall Line presents a flora almost identical 

 with that of the adjoining parts of Pennsylvania. The steep and 

 often rocky hillsides and the rich alluvial soil of the stream-valleys 



* For detailed information regarding the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont Plateau 

 and the Fall Line, see Fenneman: "Physiography of Eastern United States" 

 (McGraw-Hill, 1938), especially the first two chapters, and the maps on Plates 

 I to III. 



