156 THE VEGETATION OF THE LOWER WABASH VALLEY. 
The “Barrens” are sections covered with a scrubby wood of 
small but growing trees, their growth choked with a nearly im- 
penetrable jungle of varied shrubbery. Comparatively few years 
ago they were all open grassy prairie, but as soon as the country 
became settled the young trees began to sprout up, until gradually 
they have become entirely clothed with thick young forest. Twenty 
years from now, they will have lost their present character, and 
become transformed into the usual woods of the region.* 
Many former prairies of often ten miles or. more in breadth are 
now entirely overgrown with a dense scrub of hazel (Corylus 
Americana), sumac (Rhus — several species), blackberry (Rubus 
villosus), wild plum (Prunus Americana and P. chicasa?), crab 
apple (Pyrus coronaria) “ queen of the prairie” (Spiræa lobata), 
wild roses (Rosa iain and R. setigera) and other kindred 
shrubs, or small trees, among which spring up a more scattered 
growth of PRATAR chiefly oaks (as the Q. obtusiloba, Q. nigra, 
and a variety of Q. falcata) and hickories. For floral display, no 
sections of the country are so beautiful as the “ barrens.” The 
- crimson cones of the sumacs ; the showy climbing rose (Rosa seti- 
gera), which ascends through the trees to their very tops ; numerous 
flowering vines, among which the Leguminose and Caprifoliacex _ 
contribute each a variety of species ; and the host of gaudy-flowered 
plants belonging to the Composit, which still linger as remnants 
of the prairie vegetation, produce not only a gaudy, but also a 
richly varied appearance, which is still further beautified. by the 
ney vine-canopies with which many of the trees are clothed. 
a rairies which adjoin the forest region of the Wabash Valley 
: are mostly of limited extent, being mere indentations into the 
+ OS bays,” of the larger ones toward the middle of the 
ost of pes have now lost their primitive aspect, being 
al a under cultivation or else trampled by herds of stock. 
ording to the settlers it is now a rare, if a possible, thing, to 
. prairie where the grass is as tall, the weeds as rank and 
se, and the flowers as showy, as they were twenty or thirty 
ago. As they now are, panopio feature in their flora is 
essensa i all the old settlers of the country, that there is now a far greater 
: this there was twenty, sy or even forty years | pa 
at the timber is apasang pe ara 
sacrifices the forests. 
neroachment o of f the woods 
