Hughes Mountain and the Hughes Mountain State Natural Area are located in southern

Washington County, Missouri Washington County is located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 23,514. The county seat and largest city is Potosi. The county was officially organized on Augus ...

(Sections 28 and 33, T36N R3E) just south of the Big River and Highway M on Cedar Creek Road in the

St. Francois Mountains The St. Francois Mountains in southeast Missouri are a mountain range of Precambrian igneous mountains rising over the Ozark Plateau. This range is one of the oldest exposures of igneous rock in North America. The name of the range is spelled out ...

range of

The Ozarks The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant por ...

. The mountain reaches an elevation of just over 1,200 feet, rising 430 feet above the Big River. The Hughes Mountain Natural Area of the Missouri Department of Conservation encompasses of the mountain, including the

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained ( aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals ( phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The min ...

glade at its top.

History

The area around Hughes Mountain was first settled ca 1810 by John Hughes, his wife (Susannah) and their children, resulting in the mountain being named Hughes Mountain. The mountain itself remained public land until 1861 when purchased by John Hughes's son, Mahlon Hughes and afterwards remained in the Hughes family until it was purchased by the Missouri Conservation Commission in 1982. At that time it was designated a State Natural Area.Missouri Department of Conservation -- Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources, Natural Area Nomination Form 1982

Hughes Mountain State Natural Area

The Hughes Mountain State Natural Area can be accessed by the public via a 1.4 mile (2.253 kilometers) linear/loop trail with the trail head in a small parking area on Highway M southeast of Irondale. Within the Hughes Mountain Natural Area is a glade with an outcrops of

Precambrian The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of th ...

displaying

columnar jointing Columnar jointing is a geological structure where sets of intersecting closely spaced fractures, referred to as Joint (geology), joints, result in the formation of a regular array of polygonal Prism (geometry), prisms, or columns. Columnar joint ...

, and designated the ''Devil's Honeycomb''. Devil's Honeycomb is listed in the book, ''Geographic Wonders and Curiosities of Missouri.'' The natural area is divided between forest land (about 2/3 the total area) containing three types of forests, and glades(about 1/3 the total area).

Flora and fauna

The forest contains mainly post oaks,

white oak The genus ''Quercus'' contains about 500 species, some of which are listed here. The genus, as is the case with many large genera, is divided into subgenera and sections. Traditionally, the genus ''Quercus'' was divided into the two subgenera ' ...

s, stunted

blackjack oak ''Quercus marilandica'', the blackjack oak, is a small oak, one of the red oak group ''Quercus'' sect. ''Lobatae''. It is native to the eastern and central United States. Description ''Quercus marilandica'' is a small deciduous tree growing t ...

s, eastern red cedar,

black hickory ''Carya texana'', or black hickory, for its dark colored bark, is a North American tree in the walnut family, Juglandaceae. It is endemic to the United States, found primarily in the southern Great Plains and the Lower Mississippi Valley. It is ...

farkleberry ''Vaccinium arboreum'' (sparkleberry or farkleberry) is a species of ''Vaccinium'' native to the southeastern and south-central United States, from southern Virginia west to southeastern Nebraska, south to Florida and eastern Texas, and north to ...

winged elm ''Ulmus alata'', the winged elm or wahoo, is a small- to medium-sized deciduous tree endemic to the woodlands of the southeastern and south-central United States. The species is tolerant of a wide range of soils, and of ponding, but is the leas ...

, lowbush blueberry, service berry, red elm,

sassafras ''Sassafras'' is a genus of three extant and one extinct species of deciduous trees in the family Lauraceae, native to eastern North America and eastern Asia.Wolfe, Jack A. & Wehr, Wesley C. 1987. The sassafras is an ornamental tree. "Middle E ...

winged sumac ''Rhus copallinum'' (''Rhus copallina'' is also used but, this is not consistent with the rules of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy), the winged sumac, shining sumac, dwarf sumac or flameleaf sumac, is a species of flowering pl ...

and aromatic sumac. The glade flora includes rushfoil, rough buttonweed, broomsedge, poverty grass, yellow star grass,

little bluestem ''Schizachyrium scoparium'', commonly known as little bluestem or beard grass, is a species of North American prairie grass native to most of the contiguous United States (except California, Nevada, and Oregon) as well as a small area north of t ...

flame flower ''Talinum'' is a genus of herbaceous succulent plants in the family Talinaceae (formerly in the family Portulacaceae) whose common names include flameflower. Several species bear edible leaves, and ''Talinum fruticosum'' is widely grown in trop ...

s, prickly pear cactus,

spider wort ''Tradescantia'' () is a genus of 85 species of herbaceous perennial wildflowers in the family Commelinaceae, native to the Americas from southern Canada to northern Argentina, including the West Indies. Members of the genus are known by ma ...

, wild hyacinth, lance leaf coreopsis, pine-weed and a variety of lichen. Fauna species include two species of lizards,

fence A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length. ...

and collared, lichen grasshoppers, and prairie warblers.

Geology

Hughes Mountain is a peak in the

Range of southeastern Missouri. These

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies und ...

and

rocks of these mountains formed 1.485 billion years ago during the

Proterozoic The Proterozoic () is a geological eon spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8million years ago. It is the most recent part of the Precambrian "supereon". It is also the longest eon of the Earth's geologic time scale, and it is subdivided ...

Eon when the area was volcanically active.Denison, Rodger E., et al., ''Geology and Geochemistry of the Precambrian Rocks in the Central Interior Region of the United States'', Geological Survey Professional Paper 1241-C, 1984, pp. C8-10 Hughes Mountain is formed of

extrusive Extrusive rock refers to the mode of igneous volcanic rock formation in which hot magma from inside the Earth flows out (extrudes) onto the surface as lava or explodes violently into the atmosphere to fall back as pyroclastics or tuff. In contras ...

which fractured into vertical

joints A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw- ...

when it cooled, creating polygonal columns. These columns have from four to six sides and are up to three feet (0.91 m) tall. When viewed from above they resemble a honeycomb.

Columnar jointing Columnar jointing is a geological structure where sets of intersecting closely spaced fractures, referred to as Joint (geology), joints, result in the formation of a regular array of polygonal Prism (geometry), prisms, or columns. Columnar joint ...

is not limited to rhyolite formations. The Devils Honeycomb is a smaller example of the sort of columnar jointing found at

Devils Tower National Monument Devils Tower (also known as Bear Lodge Butte) is a butte, possibly laccolithic, composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fo ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the sou ...

Devils Postpile Devils Postpile National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located near Mammoth Mountain in Eastern California. The monument protects Devils Postpile, an unusual rock formation of columnar basalt, “all closely and perfectly fitted together ...

National Monument in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

, and the

Giant's Causeway The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption. It is located in County Antrim on the north coast of Northern Ireland, about three miles (5 km) northeast of ...

near

Bushmills Bushmills (From Irish ''Muileann na Buaise'') is a village on the north coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Bushmills had a population of 1,295 in the 2011 Census. This article contains quotations from this source, which is available unde ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...

Notes

References

* Missouri Department of Conservation—Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources, Natural Area Nomination Form 1982 * Geologic Wonders and Curiosities of Missouri, By Thomas Robinson Beveridge, Missouri Division of Geology and Land Survey, 1978, pgs 18-20 * The Missouri Conservationist, Vol. 48 No. 8 September 1987, pgs 10-14, article by Richard Thom * *

External links

* * * * {{Coord, 37, 48.12, N, 90, 42.59, W, display=title St. Francois Mountains Conservation Areas of Missouri Mountains of Missouri Protected areas established in 1982 Rock formations of Missouri Landforms of Washington County, Missouri Mountains of Washington County, Missouri Felsic intrusions 1982 establishments in Missouri Proterozoic volcanism Volcanism of Missouri