The Shenandoah National Park covers an elongate area 66 miles long and 8 to 15 miles wide saddling the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and extending from near Front Royal southwestward to Jar- mans Gap west of Charlottesville. It includes parts of Warren, Rappahannock, Page, Madison, Greene, Rockingham, Albemarle, and Augusta Counties. Its highest elevation is found on Hawksbill Mountain at 4,049 feet above sea level. The steepest slopes are toward the west, looking out over Page Valley, an arm of the Great or Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, to the Massanutten Mountains. To the east the slopes, only slightly less precipitous than those toward the west, look out over the great Piedmont Plateau. The ridge consists largely of geologically very ancient schists and other highly metamorphosed rocks and is highly dissected with very few elevated flat lands. Hence, there are few swampy areas, resulting in a limited range of habitats and a correspondingly restricted diversity of flora. Outstanding exceptions are found in a swamp at Big Meadows in the central section of the Park and Bear Wallow in the northern part.