Highway parallels river on right, railroad on left. Vacation homes are scattered overlooking river above the flood line. Steep riparian edge with compressed community turn-over is the norm along slower straight reaches.;Boulder - cobble bar along a small reach of rapids near the end of an inside bend in the river. Community is a narrow prairie dominated by tall, warm season grasses with abundant false indigo. Physiognomy kept open by regular high - energy floods. Flotsam line is well above the plot. Line of battered sycamore and river birch along the bottom edge of plot is anomolous - how does it survive flooding that keeps the prairie above it, open?
Representativeness
Long, narrow plot to sample homogeneous prairie vegetation. About 1-2 meters elevation range from fron to back of plot. Most shrubs and trees are along the upper edge of plot.