INDIAN MOUNDS WILDERNESS AREA. Indian Mounds Wilderness Area, comprising a wilderness of 12,000 acres, begins seven miles east of Hemphill and extends eastward to the shores of Toledo Bend Reservoir in Sabine National Forest. The area has the largest population of American beech and Southern magnolia remaining in the national forests of the United States (beech-magnolia is a threatened plant community). It also includes Rock Hill and Sand Hill, the highest elevations in the national forests in Texas. Indian Mounds is the only Texas wilderness to preserve yellow lady's slipper orchids, broad beech ferns, and several other plant species. It also has a state champion eastern hop hornbean and the national cochampion little-hip hawthorn. Indian Mounds Wilderness Area is bisected by three roads that lead to gas wells and lakeshore developments. Two miles south on Farm Road 115 from Farm Road 83 is a big pipeline. A path leads northeast a half mile to Hurricane Bayou. Up and down this stream are bluffs dripping with ferns, shaded by Southern magnolias. On Farm Road 83 a path leads from the northwest corner of the wilderness southward along the west bank of Upper Bull Creek. Here cinnamon ferns and orchids survive.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edward C. Fritz, Realms of Beauty: The Wilderness Areas of East Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986). Edward C. Fritz, Sterile Forest (Austin: Eakin Press, 1983).

Edward C. Fritz