I04 THE PLANT WORLD. 



Warrior or Tuscaloosa) River crosses the fall-line or inland 

 boundary of the coastal plain. Going- up the river (northeast- 

 ward ) from Tuscaloosa one soon enters the terrane of the Coal 

 Measures (upper Carboniferous strata) at the southwestern ex- 

 tremity of the Alleghanian region, where high sandstone cliffs 

 and deep ravines are characteristic features of the landscape, as 

 in many other parts of the country where the same formations 

 occur. In the other direction from Tuscaloosa the coastal plain, 

 a region of very dift'erent aspect, stretches away to the shores of 

 the Gulf of Mexico. Although by no means a homogeneous or 

 monotonous region, the coastal plain is pretty sharply dift'eren- 

 tiated from other parts of eastern Xorth America by the absence 

 of high elevations and the scarcity of steep slopes and rock out- 

 crops ; its Cretaceous and Tertiary strata are almost everywhere 

 concealed under a blanket of sand and loam of Quaternary or late 

 Tertiary age ; and its flora differs constantly and unmistakably 

 ( but bv no means totallv ) from that of the other regions farther 

 inland. 



, So much for the surroundings of Tuscaloosa. My first oppor- 

 tunity to botanize in this part of the state came on December 5, 

 1905, on which date I went about eight miles up the eastern bank 

 of the Warrior River into the coal region and back by the same 

 route. There was a heavy frost in the morning, some of which 

 remained on the ground all day in shaded places, so flowers were 

 hardly to be expected ; but there were enough unfamiliar or unex- 

 pected trees, shrubs, and evergreen herbs along the route to make 

 the trip interesting. 



Although some outcrops of Carboniferous rocks appear within 

 the limits of Tuscaloosa, the first real cliffs encountered in going 

 up the river are about five miles above the city, near the mouth 

 of North River, a tributary of the Warrior which enters f ro ii 

 the west side. At about this point I noticed on the cliffs across 

 the river many specimens of what appeared to be Finns Jlr- 

 j^iiiiaiia, a species which had never been reported to occur so far 

 south, or at so low an altitude in the southern states (about two 

 hundred feet). A few minutes later my identification was con- 

 firmed by finding specimens on the same side where I was, and 



