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THIS region, while including within its bounds a great variety of topography and soil, each type with its own peculiar vegetational landscape, may be properly designated as characterized in general and upon the smoother portions by an open stand of mesquite upon a rich grassland. Upon the rough, dissected portions, where bold hills-in part, remnants of the eroded Great Plains- stand in rugged resistance to nature's weathering, scrub oaks, cedars, Mimosas, Acacias, and other woody brush are prominent. Along Red River and its several tributaries and forks, great sand dunes are shifted back and forth at the whim of changeful but predominantly southeasterly winds. Other sandy stretches, notably in Taylor and Fisher counties, mark the westernmost limit of distribution of the Post-oak. But the most outstanding and widespread characteristic of this region, before agriculture devoted the rich Permian Redbeds to crops, was the open mesquite savanna which constituted the virgin vegetation on this important geologic formation. Other thorny brush, as Condalia, Zizyphus, Mimosa, and Acacia occur in this region, but the great natural woody dominant is mesquite.

The grassland is largely composed of buffalo, various gramas, purple triple-awn, and fox-tail grasses. In the more moist situations and on the rougher stony outcrops, little bluestem, Triodias, and other bunch grasses are found. Wild flowers are plentiful and varied, being on the whole much the same as are present along the breaks and canyons of the High Plains.

Small grain is grown in the northwestern portion on such lands as are favorable to agriculture, while throughout the region agricultural lands are well adapted to cotton and to the grain sorghums. Most of the soils of the Permian contain enough flocculating material to render the soil at once quite porous and pervious to moisture and yet to cause it to withstand blowing. The region contains some of the finest dry-farming lands of the state, while the rougher, untillable portions are devoted to grazing.