Mud Creek

Mud creek is a designated natural area because it has all three examples of bottomland forest: Mesic (moist soils), wet-mesic (seasonally wet soils) and wet bottomland forest (permanently wet soils.) 

Mud creek is one of the largest high-quality bottomland forests on the Mark Twain National Forest system. It is a transition zone between the dry oak hickory forests of the Ozarks to the wet, marshy forests of the Mississippi floodplain. Mud creek is a widely meandering slow moving creek with a rocky, muddy base. 

As you travel down Mud Creeks length, you will see over 300 species of plants (including 17 different types of oak trees.) As you start down the stream bed, you will find black oak and hickory trees, farther down are white and scarlet oaks, then green ash and sugar maple trees. Near the bottom are swamp chestnut and pin oak trees, and finally, at the base, river birch, silver maple, and bald cypress trees.