MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
140 
THE PINE HILLS 
AT LOWELL, 
MICHIGAN. 
BY BERT E. QUICK. 
The southern portion of Kent County lies near the southern border 
of tlie North-eastern Conifer Province, typified on dry ground by forests 
dominated by the white pine, Pinus Strobus. The pine here, today, is 
not abundant, and such isolated areas as now occur in this region 
should be studied and described before they have all vanished. 
The town of Lowell is located on Grand River, about a mile from 
where it enters Kent County on the east, and at a point where a 
tributary, the Flat River, joins the Grand from the north. The hills 
which border Flat River are part of one of the largest moraines left 
by the Saginaw lobe of the ice-sheet in its retreat at the end of the 
glacial period. A few of these hills about a mile north of the town 
are always referred to locally as “the Pine-hills.” 
Looking at these hills from a distance, one would scarcely recognize 
them by this name. The hills seem wooded almost exclusively with 
deciduous trees, and only in the winter do the few pines stand out 
conspicuously. They lie close to the river, and suffer considerably from 
cutting by the currents, so the sides rise somewhat precipitously. The 
soil is dry and sandy, showing as yellow scars where a portion of the 
hillside has fallen into the river. 
Proceeding northward from the town, the first of these hills shows 
but little tree growth. The pines are scattered, a few small ones here 
and there occur, but the majority of the smaller growth is deciduous. 
The large pines still left are all dead, apparently because of the caving 
of the soil from about their roots. The arbor-vitae is conspicuous 
here, and small junipers border the caved places, and are perched on 
the more solid portions of soil in the cuts themselves. The following 
list embraces the most common plants here: 
Pinus Strobus 
Thuja occidentalis 
•Tun i peru s v i rgi n i a n a 
Equisetun hiemale, var. robustum 
Salix sp. 
Quercus rubra 
Anemone cylindrica 
Pyrola asarifolia 
Chimaphila umbellata 
Rhus toxicodendron 
Solidago caesia, var. axillaris 
Soli dago canadensis 
A n ten n a r i a pi anta gi n i folia 
Rudbeckia hirta 
Achillaea millefolium 
Hieracium sp. 
sharply divided into 
and hickory, while 
pines of moderate 
the larger ones up 
the smallest indi- 
Otlier plants in less 
for only thirty years. 
The second hill has its riverward face rather 
two parts. The southern half is covered with oak 
the northern half has almost no vegetation except 
size. The smaller pines were less than a foot high, 
to thirty feet. Even the smallest are not young; 
vidua! found showed an age of twenty-five years, 
exposed situations showed a growth of five feet 
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