A FLORA OF WEBSTER COUNTY, IOWA. 
COMPILED BY O. M. OLESON AIs^D M. P. SOMES. 
Webster county lies just north and west of the geographical center 
of Iowa and is somewhat larger than any of the surrounding counties 
having an area of 720 miles. The county is primarily a prairie county, 
its only forests being narrow strips along the streams. The average ele- 
vation of the county as a whole is about 1100 feet. Along the Des 
Moines River, which crosses the county from north to south, the forest 
fringe varies from a quarter of a mile to more than three miles in 
width and is made up of such trees as oak, hickory, elm, ash, basswood 
and the like. Both branches of Lizard Creek are wooded and Soldier 
Creek and most of the other streams have more or less of woods along 
them. The larger part of the surface of the county is open rolling 
prairie vdth a soil of “Wisconsin Driff' for the most part with a few 
morainic hills of coarse gravel, most noticeable in the northern parts 
of the county, but some isolated mounds in the south part are very- 
striking. 
The natural drainage system of the country is quite young and the 
stream systems are comparatively simple. As a result of these con- 
ditions marshes, ponds and sloughs of considerable area abound, although 
these areas are now being reclaimed by ditching. . 
In the southern part of the county the Des Moines and its tribu- 
taries flow through the “Coal Measures Sandstones” and their valleys 
are bounded by abrupt escarpments of the sandstone, with steep cliffs 
from forty to one hundred feet in height. 
Another element which perhaps enters into the conditions producing 
such an abundant and varied series of plants here, is the fact that the 
portion of the country about Fort Dodge, in the central part of the 
county, is underlaid by beds many feet thick of gypsum or “land plaster” 
and while it has been contended that these underlying beds have no 
direct influence on the vegetation of this section, the fact still remains 
that the areas near the exposures of the gypsum beds, viz. the valley 
of “Two Mile Creek” or as ft is more familiarly known “Gypsum-Hol- 
low”, and the Des Moines Valley near “Blanden’s Mill have an entirely 
distinctive flora from any other points, not only as to species but as 
to relative density of growth. 
The plants listed in this Flora, which we know and acknowledge to 
be incomplete, are the result of the past three years work and while 
we have been able to examine the northern parts of the county care- 
fully, we have not, by reason of the size of the county, been able to 
work out the southern parts as closely as we wish. We present this 
list however as a definite beginning and we expect to add to it from 
time to time as we may. 
■J ’•SET 
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