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Paynes Prairie is a large basin south of Gainesville covered by marsh and wet prairie vegetation. William Bartram recorded his impressions of Paynes Prairie in April of 1774. "Now on a sudden opens to view an inchanting scene, the great allatchua savanah. Behold, a vast plain of water in the middle of a pine forest 15 miles in extent & near 50 miles in circumferance, verged with green level meadows. In the summer season, beautifully adorned with jeting points & pormentorys of high land. The prospect is greatly beautiful by the prodigious numbers of wild fowl of various kinds, such as cranes, herons, biterns, pluvers, coots, & vast herds of cattle, horses, & deer which, we see far distant, in detatchments over the vast plain. The upper regions of the air contributes to this joyfull scene. The silver plum'd heron, early in the morning hastening to their fisheries, croud to the watery plain. The sonorrous stork & whooping crains proclaim the near approaches of summers heat, decend from the skies in musical squadrons & decend; spreading themselves over the wide green."