FORESTS AND HERBACEOUS FLORA OF LOWLANDS. 87 
post oak, Southern shagbark hickory (//icoria carolinae-septentrio- 
natis), black oak, Spanish oak, and more rarely black walnut, the last 
becoming scarce wherever it is accessible. 
On these bench lands the white oak takes the place of the cow oak. 
There can be little doubt that the largest supplies of white oak timber 
in the State are preserved in these coves of the Tennessee Valley. 
The full-grown trees average from 2 to 3 feet in diameter. Four 
trees felled for investigation were of the following dimensions: 
Dimensions and age of white oak timber. 
. | Length of | 
No.of |, Diameter | stick of | Total Annual 
sample, |Preast high! merchant-| height of | rings in 
, ple. (inches). able timber tree (feet).]| stump. 
(feet). | 
1 22 52 108 | 170 | 
2 25 35 115 | 180 | 
3 36 | 25 99 190 
4 
| 2 BS 102 162 | 
Five or six trees of these dimensions have frequently been counted 
upon an acre. 
The Southern shellbark or shagbark hickory is also abundant in 
these coves, and large quantities of this timber are annually shipped 
to the manufacturing centers North and South. The saplings of this 
tree form the greater part of the undergrowth in the more open forest. 
The Spanish oak (Quercus digitata (Q. falcata Michx.)) is at its best 
where the terraces merge into the lowland. Its sturdy trunk aver- 
ages from 2 to 3 feet in diameter, with a total height of from 90 to 100 
feet, affording clear sticks of timber 36 to 48 feet long. The age of 
such trees of full growth varies between 135 and 175 years. 
The willow oak (Quercus phellos) is most abundant in wet, undrained 
flats of an impervious soil. In Alabama it is rarely found outside of 
this valley, but extends sparingly southward to the Central Prairie 
region. This oak seldom exceeds 80 feet in height, with an average 
diameter breast high of 25 inches, and spreads its massive limbs at a 
height of from 30 to sometimes 40 feet from the ground. 
The large amount of hardwood lumber sawn at the mills on the 
banks of the Tennessee River (chiefly at Decatur) and at the numerous 
smaller factories along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad exhibits 
the rapid development of the industries depending upon the timber 
wealth of the Tennessee Valley. 
Mesophile herbaceous plant associations.—The herbaceous flora of the 
forests of the bottom and bench lands comprises but a small number 
of mesophile species growing under their dense shade, Late in autumn 
the writer observed Chimaphila maculata and Galium circaezans, both 
northern types extending to the Canadian zone, and also Mitchella 
repens, common throughout temperate eastern North America, 
