Fig. 23.-- Mouth of the ravine at the site of the old 
Fountain Bluff station. This is the only sizable break in the 
tall sandstone cliff in the north side of the bluff. 
and gravel company, and a power Station -- have de- 
veloped. Three power lines from the power station 
cross Fountain Bluff. Two extend eastward; the third 
stretches northward for some distance on the crest of 
the bluff ridge along the Mississippi River. 
The vegetational cover of Fountain Bluff is most- 
ly deciduous forest; it is interspersed with small 
prairie openings and one large hill prairie. A small 
area serves as agricultural land for crop and live- 
stock production and as a site for a commercial enter- 
prise. The dominant tree of the forest appears to be 
the tulip tree. This tree grows on the slopes and in 
the ravines. Associated with this species is northern 
ted oak, black oak, white oak, chinquapin oak, and 
white ash. In the valleys or ravines the sycamore, 
beech, honey locust, hard maple, and American and 
slippery elms grow profusely. Black locust evidently 
was once widely planted in the area. The understory 
trees include sassafras, redbud, flowering dogwood, 
hop hornbeam, Iowa crabapple, and blue beech. Com- 
mon shrubs and vines are poison ivy, spicebush, wild 
hydrangea, and the introduced Japanese honeysuckle. 
In some places, this honeysuckle has become a pest; 
it covers the ground surface, forms a dense growth 
on tree trunks, fig. 24, and completely covers small 
shrubs. Many ferns and herbaceous flowering plants, 
including rare orchids, grow in the moist ravines. 
Mosses are ordinarily common on the soil surface, 
Fig. 24.-- Japanese honeysuckle in the Fountain Bluff 
area, This plant forms a dense cover over the ground and on 
shrubs; also, it forms a dense columnar growth on tree 
trunks. 
and both mosses and liverworts abound on the moist 
sandstone outcrops and cliffs in the ravines. Of in- 
terest to botanists are the numerous patches of plume 
grass that are scattered on the ridge top to the north 
and at the base of the bluff to the east. This grass 
may reach heights of 8 feet or more, fig. 25. 
Fig. 25.-- Plume grass on Fountain Bluff.These culms 
are over § feet tall. 
19 
