The Plant World 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF POPULAR BOTANY. 



Vol. l DECEMBER, 1897. No. 3. 



THE PINE-BARREN FLORA IN THE EAST TENNESSEE 



MOUNTAINS. 



By Thomas H. Kearney^ Jr. 



FOLLOWING the coast of the Atlantic and Gulf States, from 

 Cape Cod around to the mouth of the Trinity, in Texas, is a 

 belt of low, flat, sandy country, generally known as the coastal 

 plain. Popularly it is spoken of as the "pine-barrens," be- 

 cause of the two or three species of pine that are the most character- 

 istic feature of its vegetation. 



On the southern New England coast and on Long Island and 

 Staten Island, the coastal plain is represented by small patches here 

 and there, fragments of a wider region that has yielded gradually to 

 the encroachments of the Atlantic. But, as we journey southward, 

 this strip becomes ever wider, until in the far southern states it ex- 

 pands into a vast forest tract, often extending eighty miles or more 

 back from the coast. Northward the Pitch Pine [Pimis rigidci) is the 

 prevailing tree, while in the South Atlantic and Gulf States thousands 

 and thousands of acres are covered with a forest of the Long-Leaf Pine 

 [P.pahistris), unbroken, save where man has laid his destroying hand, 

 or where the wide sluggish current of one of the great rivers inter- 

 poses. 



This pine-barren country has a very characteristic flora, a flora 

 very largely American in its origin. Many plants of peculiar interest 

 belong to it. Nearly all the Side-Saddle Flowers (species of Sarra- 

 cenia) inhabit this region. Most of our species of Deer Grass 

 {Rhexia), of Button-Snake-Root {Lac tnaria), and of American Centaury 

 (Saddafia) are indigenous to the coastal plain Many showy plants of 

 the Pea family {Leguuiinosce), and of the Sun-flower family [Coin- 

 positce), brighten the floor of these otherwise rather sombre forests, 

 while orchids and sedges flourish about the numerous pools and bogs. 



