Higden Bogs
The name is a bit of a misnomer, for the land is a rich forest and not a bog at all. Only along the banks of the Mistbane, extending for a few miles east is the land a marsh. The rest is verdant country. This low lying region of rolling hills lies between the Mistbane and the Watchita Rivers, hemmed in by the Pig’s Trail in the north. The soil here is rich and black and the ground ripe for giant trees. Here massive white oaks tower over all, some from shallow, broad valleys, some over a hundred feet tall. Their leaves and tangled branches provide a dark shade for the host of flora that grows beneath the canopy, a wide variety of brush, small trees, grasses and the like. In many ways the forest is terraced here, with an upper terrace of white oak and a lower of the normal forest.
All this makes the Higden particularly dark during the spring and summer, little light passing through the thick and dark leaves of both terraces. What does filters through in faded shafts of pale yellow or white. It is dark, and quiet for the spongy earth emits few noises to disturb the whole.
The thick vegetation and the failing light make travel here difficult. Trails do no remain long and the crowded forest floor does not allow creatures to pass easy. The bogs are known for the many birds that dwell in both terraces and the host of wildlife that pass beneath the wood’s eves.
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