128 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIHNCE 
A sample area in the broken country a quarter-mile west of 
the Embarras river was mapped (Fig. 1). The originally for- 
ested area, much of it still wooded, extends a third of a mile 
west of this area. The upland shown was probably entirely 
forested ; it is now a cultivated field. Its steep southwest and 
west side-slopes are partly forested; there are rather well- 
developed patches of prairie also,and prairieplantsamong scat- 
tered trees. The Big Four railroad makes a cut eighteen feet 
deep through the end of this upland, and its right of way is now 
all prairie, both over what remains of the original surface and 
on the steep clay banks of the cut. Of the numerous prairie 
species, Andropogon furcatus, Brauneria pallida, Parthenium 
integrifolium, and Euphorbia corollata, are conspicuous. The 
hillside just over the fence from the prairie in the right of way 
is closely covered with trees; the boundary at the fence is quite 
sharp. 
North and northeast-facing slopes in the right of way have 
the mixture of prairie and forest herbs previously mentioned. 
Notable plants are Smilacina (two species), Polygonatum, 
Taenidia integerrima, Specularia, Gillenia stipulata, and in 
one station, Pteris aquilina. 
If the prairie growths remaining along railroads are to be 
of use as typifying former conditions of prairie vegetation, care 
must be taken to distinguish areas of original prairie from 
those recently developed on forest land. The rather frequent 
occurrence of such new growths, established as they seem to be, 
makes it necessary to reconsider the fairly common notion that 
prairie vegetation, once destroyed, is gone forever, and to realize 
that in its struggle for survival against cultural, ruderal, and 
forest plants, the prairie, in some areas at least, is putting up 
a not altogether losing fight. 
