Climate of Middle Illinois. 31 



Woody climbers are the trumpet creeper, the Virginia creeper, the 

 poison ivy, the Virgin's bower, 3 species of grapevines, the yellow honey 

 suckle, the waxwork, the climbing rose, the hispid green brier and the 

 Canadian moonseed. 



As much mixed as the forest is, the different species of trees and 

 shrubs do not like the same localities. Some prefer a dry, others a moist 

 soil. 



The left bank of the Illinois river opposite Peoria is bottom land one 

 mile wide, in spring inundated and for the greater part still thickly 

 wooded. Nearest the bank we find the long-leaved and the black willow, 

 cotton wood, sycamore, soft maple and white elm. Farther backward, 

 black walnut, butternut, pecan, ribbed hickory, hackberry, slippery elm, 

 burr oak, swamp white oak, the five species of ash, of which the green ash 

 is the most frequent, the coffee nut, the honey locust, mulberry, box elder, 

 the buckeye, the paw paw, the persimmon, the elder and the false indigo. 

 On open swampy places, the button bush, the osier dogwood and [species 

 of shrubby willows. 



The highest trees climb the grapevine, the poison ivy, the Virginian 

 creeper and the trompet creeper; on shrubs, the climbing rose and the 

 hispid green brier. 



Along the foot of the bluff and upward the forest is composed of 

 sugar maple, scarlet, red and shingle oak, chestnut oak, wild cherry, large 

 toothed and American aspen, hop tree, service berry, bass wood, hornbeam, 

 hop-hornbeam, sheeps berry. The undergrowth is composed of witch 

 hazel, walioo, prickly ash, bladdernut, buckthorn, arrow wood, chokecherry, 

 rough-leaved dog wood, panicled and alternate-leaved cornel, yellow 

 honey suckle and wax work. 



On the upland the prominent trees are the white oak, shell-bark hick- 

 ory, mockernut, Ijitternut. The brushes hazel. New Jersey tea, smooth 

 sumach and prairie willow. 



Coniferous trees are rare: red cedar on single places in small groups 

 and of small growth. The arbor vitae seems to be extinct, but no doubt 

 was once indigenous, for 30 years ago a single tree 60 centimeter thick- 

 was found in a swampy place, where it was certainly not planted. The 

 trunk was inclined in an angle of 35 degrees from the ground, so that one 

 could walk up to the branches. 



Some of the larger trees grow very rapidly, f. i. cottonwood and s^'^ca- 

 more, others have slow growth. A white oak, 11 decimeter thick, was 

 examined, and 250 circles could be counted, 25 of them occupying the sap- 

 wood. A sugar maple 92 centimeter thick had 230 circles, and the growth 

 of the last 100 years was only 2 decimeter. The outermost layer of the 

 bark was 125 years old, and the width of the bark was 3 centimeter. A 

 black walnut 75 years old was 3 decimeter thick — a thickness attained by 

 cottonwood already in 20 years.* 



*The biggest tree I measured was a bald cypress, in Pulaski county. It had in 

 4 feet from the ground a diameter of 2.1 meter. 



