Document Type
Report
Publication Date
1985
Report of Investigations Number
71
Abstract
The Northfield research area of Consolidation Coal Company's Burning Star Mine# 4 occupies the Upper Galum Creek drainage of Perry County, Illinois. This stream, a tributary of the Big Muddy River, together with its principal tributaries, Bonnie and Rock Fork creeks, drains an area of mature topography featuring the low relief, gently rolling hills, and broad alluvial valleys typical of the Mt. Vernon Hill Country of the Southern Till Plains Division. Although, floristically speaking, the study area lies within the Oak-Hickory Forest Region of the Western Mesophytic Forest (Braun 1950), the local vegetative pattern can more properly be described as comprising a mosaic of plant communities in which the prairie-forest ecotone is dominant.