JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ARNOLD ARBORETUM 



Volume VI OCTOBER, 1925 Number 4 



CATALOGUE OF TREES GROWING NATURALLY IN THE 



VICINITY OF SARDIS, DALLAS COUNTY, ALABAMA 



R. S. Cocks 



The appended list of species and varieties of native trees amounting 

 to about one hundred and thirty are all growing in the vicinity of Sardis, 

 a small flag station on the Selma-Flomaton Railroad about eight miles 

 from Selma on the south side of the Alabama River from which it is about 

 two miles distant. With the exception of five or six trees which are noted 

 in their respective places, all the others are growing on a small strip of 

 land comprising about three hundred acres. The strip in question lies 

 along the Alabama River for a distance of about three-fourths of a mile 

 beginning at a high bluff known as Hatcher's Bluff perhaps three hundred 

 and fifty feet high and ending at a landing known as Givhan's Landing 

 where the bank is only a few feet above the river. It extends back from 

 the river about half a mile at both north and south boundaries. The 

 land is very hilly near the river gradually becoming flatter as one gets away 

 from the river. It is traversed by three very winding creeks which just 

 as is the case with the river, alternate with high limestone banks and no 

 banks at all. The creeks join together and enter the river at Givhan's 

 Landing. The majority of the trees here listed grow near the junction 

 of the river and creeks. Both river and creeks are subject to huge floods 

 rising sometimes as much as sixty or seventy feet, so that a large portion 



of the land is subject to overflow every two or three years. In the summer 

 of 1915 the creeks which are normally a few feet wide and a few inches 

 deep were large rivers fifty or sixty feet deep and only the tops of the trees 



on the banks were above the water. The whole strip was formerly an 

 unbroken forest, but the trees are now all gone except a dense fringe along 

 the creeks and the river. On account of the windings of the creeks, there 

 are probably two miles. of creek banks to a straight mile, just as by the 

 river it is here eighteen miles to Selma, and by the road only eight. 



This somewhat verbose description is an attempt to show that in this 

 small space there is more room for trees than would be the case if it were 

 not for the creeks with their high winding banks and the contour of the 

 land. Probably eighty percent of all the trees of Alabama grow here, 

 and what is perhaps still more remarkable, no less than twenty-six species 



