The Changing Geography of Vegetation Placenames in the Indiana Prairie Border Region

Abstract

Maps of the Indiana prairie-forest border region show that historical changes in vegetation place names have mirrored human transformation of the landscape. Early names were applied to actual vegetation features. With destruction of the natural vegetation they have disappeared or shifted to non-vegetation features, often with little spatial relationship to the original vegetation patterns. Artificial new vegetation names have proliferated on cultural vegetation and apparently on fragmentary remnants of the original forest. The overall trend has been toward homogenization and loss of place specificity in both vegetation cover and vegetation placenames.