Earl L. Core, "The silvery sheen of the grass, against the dark green background of the spruce, attracted the attention of the early settlers.... The dominant grass is Allegheny flyback (Danthonia compressa), a grass so light in weight that it would "fly back" against the scythe of the mower". The origin of these grassy tracts has been the subject of wide-ranging speculation. Core favored a multi-factorial explanation involving a "bald-susceptible zone" present at mountain summits where various causes (extreme weather, fires, etc.) initially wiped out trees followed by succession by grasses that was so competitive with the new tree seedlings that the cleared areas persist for a much longer period than at lower elevations. Heath barrens (huckleberry plains) The extensive views across the tundra-like windswept open meadows in the northern section of Dolly Sods are reminiscent of Alaskan landscapes. "Heath barrens" is a botanical term, but the traditional local name for these unusual expanses was "huckleberry plains". These upper reaches have been extensively colonized by various Ericaceae (heaths): blueberry and cranberry (Vaccinium), huckleberry (Gaylussacia), rose azalea (Rhododendron prinophyllum) and rosebay rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum), mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), teaberry (or wintergreen, Gaultheria), and Allegheny menziesia (Rhododendron pilosum). Members of Rosaceae (the rose family) also abound: chokeberry, mountain ash, serviceberry, and pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica). Boulder fields left by the denuding topsoil fires of 80 years ago are extensive here. Sphagnum glades (cranberry bogs) These spruce-edged sphagnum bogs are found in the upper sections of Red Creek and its tributaries, often in association with thickets of speckled alder. There are similar areas throughout the High Alleghenies, most famously the Cranberry Glades. The largest one at Dolly Sods is about a mile long and half a mile wide. The thick carpet of sphagnum moss and the polytrichum moss hummocks also sustain cotton grass, round leaf sundew and the lichen known as reindeer moss. In addition to the spruce, the bog margins are frequented by ferns, sedges and the occasional balsam fir. The three-toothed cinquefoil (Sibbaldiopsis tridentata) is often abundant and orchids – for example the pink lady's slipper – are sometimes seen. Hardwood forests The more southerly section of the Dolly Sods Wilderness includes maturing spruce copses, rhododendron thickets, northern hardwoods on the ridges and cove hardwoods in the deep tributaries of Red Creek. All of the original old-growth forest was removed a century ago, followed by fires that burned, then smoldered, for