PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 97 



On the northern sides of the great hollow Marchantia covers the moist 

 faces of the rocks like a carpet sometimes in patches twenty feet square. 

 Campanula rotundifolia is abundant, while Polupodium vulgare and Pel- 

 lea atropurpureum are not rare. Cystoperis fragilis and Bulbifera are 

 common and the Woodsia obtusa may also be found. In the ravines Botry- 

 chium virginianum and Phegopteris nexagonoptera may also be collected, 

 the latter often growing with Asplenium angusitifolium. On portions of 

 the alluvial area the giant fronds or the plume-like fruiting fronds of the 

 ostrich fern may be found. 



Great masses of talus are covered with the Camptosorus rhizopiiyllus 

 the walking fern, which iis perhaps more abundant at the Palisades than 

 in any other place in Iowa. With this walking fern grow some of 

 the finest of the mosses, such as the Climacium Americanum or tree 

 moss, the Thuidaum delicatulum and other fern mosses with Pohlia 

 elongata where the water trickles down the rocks and great masses 

 of the yellow-green Brachythecium oxycladon upon the prostrate trunks 

 of trees laid low by many a mighty torrent. 



Hydrophyllum appendiculum the appendaged w r aterleaf and the com- 

 moner form H. virginicum, grow in profusion among the talus at the 

 bases of the cliffs, together with the bladdernut, the ninebark and the 

 burning bush. The one-flowered cancer root, Aphllyon uniflorum and 

 the Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora) are plentiful. There is something 

 to delight the eye and to stimulate the mind at every season of the year. 



In the caverns up the faces of the cliffs, the turkey vulture some- 

 times rears her young and occasionally you may see her sitting in the 

 opening with her big wings spread to the sun as your boat glides by. 

 High on the hills, beneath her two speckled eggs in a small depression 

 among last year's leaves and not far away may sometimes be found 

 the nest of the ruffed grouse, a bird becoming all too rare in our state. 

 Occasionally one may find this 'bird sitting on her nest and still more 

 rarely stumble on the young chicks newly out of the shell so recently 

 indeed that the mother bird has hastily ranged them around the edge 

 of the nest until she has time to carry them farther away. The blue 

 gray gnat catcher and the Acadian fly catcher are other interesting 

 birds of this beautiful bit of woodland, both of them nest there. So 

 does the prothonotary warbler. The blue grosbeak, very rarely seen in 

 Iowa, is also found here. The nests of the cardinal grosbeak and the 

 Cedar waxwing are common. There are hundreds of phebe's nests on 

 the faces of the cliffs, near the surface of the river and above the little 

 brooks in the hollows. These nests are built of moss and are fastened 

 in the little pockets of the rock. 



Some of the rare wild animals of the state frequently are found here. 

 The badger which was once reported extinct for Iowa is fairly com- 

 mon, so is the opossum almost the northern limit for this marsupial. 

 The raccoon, the skunk and the mink are plentiful, also the groundhog 

 and occasionally a fox or a wolf. 



The Palisades area is of the utmost scientific value for the state 

 university at Iowa City, Cornell college at Mt. Vernon and Coe college 

 at Cedar Rapids. Students from all of these institutions spend much 



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