 |  | GEOLOGY / PHYSIOGRAPHY / HYDROLOGY
SOIL & VEGETATION / HISTORIC VEGETATION
THE PRESENT FOREST - IMPACTS & TRENDS |
Soils and Vegetation
Fallingwater soils are fairly shallow soils that have developed from material weathered in place from gray shale and sandstone bedrock. They are strongly acid due to the sandstone parent material, and have low to moderate fertility.
These soils, along with the region’s climate and topography, have given rise to two forest types, characteristic of the region – the Appalachian Oak Forest, the dominant forest type of Pennsylvania, and the Mesic Forest, the most diverse forest found in Pennsylvania.
The Appalachian-Oak Forest is found on rich to moderately poor, acidic soils. The climate is relatively dry and warm. This forest is generally found on plateaus, uplands, and south-facing slopes. You’ll find these trees, shrubs, and plants from this forest type at Fallingwater:
| Trees | Smaller Trees and Shrubs | Plants and ferns | | White Oak | Serviceberry | Violet | | Red Oak | Mountain Laurel | Hepatica | | Black Oak | Flowering dogwood | False solomon’s seal | | Hickory | Native azaleas | Fire Pink | | Red Maple | Witchhazel | Common Stonecrop | | Tulip Tree | Blueberries | Trailing Arbutus | | Chestnut Oak | Elder | Wild Geranium | | Sugar Maple | Spicebush | Teaberry | | Maple-leaved viburnum | Cut-leaved toothwart | | | Mayapple | | | Virginia Creeper | | | Large-flowered trillium |
The Mesic Forest is found in small pockets that are located around cool mountain streams (like Bear Run), in steep, rocky ravines, and on hillsides that predominantly face north and west. The environment is more moist and a bit cooler than the Appalachian-Oak forest. At Fallingwater, you find this environment downstream of the waterfalls, where the mist rising from the falls creates a different environment than the one on top of the hillside, near the guest house.
You’ll find these species from the Mesic Forest here:
| Trees | Smaller Trees and Shrubs | Plants and ferns | | Hemlock | Striped Maple | Clintonia | | Black Birch | Great Rhododendron | Red Baneberry | | Cucumber magnolia | Serviceberry | Ferns | | Tulip Tree | Witchhazel | Violets | | Maples | Wild Hydrangea | Painted trillium | | Beech | Red-berried Elder | Merry Bells | | Red Oaks | Spice Bush | Club Moss | | Dogwood | False Solomon’s Seal | | | True Solomon’s Seal | | | Mayapple |
Historic Vegetation
The Native Americans of the area, who managed the forest before European settlement, kept the continuous forest cover largely intact. From the mid 19th century to the present, when increasing numbers of settlers finally were able to colonize and exploit this isolated mountainous area, the almost unbroken and largely undisturbed forest was then radically altered. Ridges and broad valley slopes were logged and famed, while the stream valleys were used as transportation corridors, particularly by the railroads which brought raw materials to the mills of Pittsburgh. The steep slopes and deep stream gorges largely unusable for agriculture or industry because of their inaccessibility became, at the turn of the twentieth century, the scenic remnants of a dramatic terrain and majestic old growth forest.
Even at the beginning of the twentieth century much of the Youghiogheny forest was extraordinarily rich in species. Botanists convening for an Ohiopyle symposium in 1905 marveled at the abundance o and variety of herbaceous species covering the forest floor. Dozens of species of wildflowers, ferns and mushrooms formed a living tapestry that reflected the complexity of the old growth forest community. Much of this beautiful area, including Bear Run, was logged, in some cases several times, by 1913. Bear Run was also high graded in the early 1960’s, removing many of the remaining large, old forest canopy trees on the upper slopes.
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