1923] PALMER, THE RED RIVER FOREST AT FULTON, ARKANSAS 31 



In looking over the above list, comprising nearly two hundred species 

 and varieties of woody plants, and comapring it with similar lists from 

 other parts of the general region, it will readily be seen that the repre- 

 sentation of the forest flora is very full in the small area w T ithin a radius of 

 about five kilometers of Fulton, which has been described, and that 

 besides a few plants peculiar to the region there are several others both of 

 northern and southern range whose presence is rather surprising here. 

 The locality, it should be remembered, is well within the boundaries of 

 the southern division of the Atlantic forest belt and therefore no such 

 diversity is to be expected as might occur along the boundary of two life 

 zones or sub-regions, such as we begin to encounter a few degrees of longi- 

 tude father west. 



Among plants having a range to the north and east and which appear 

 to reach about the southwestern limits of their range here may be men- 

 tioned Carya oralis var. obcordata Sarg., Mains ioensis var. Palmeri Rehd., 

 Rosa Carolina L., Robinia Pseudoacacia L., Aesadus glabra var. leucodermis 

 Sarg., Ceanothus americanus L. and Fraxinus quadrangulata Michx. The 

 Crabapples are extremely rare or entirely absent over most of eastern 

 Texas, and when the genus does reappear in the canyons of the Edwards 

 plateau it is represented by a distinct variety (Mains ioensis var. texana 

 Rehd.). Robinia Pseudoacacia L. is undoubtedly native in the moun- 

 tainous regions of eastern Oklahoma, being very abundant on the sand- 

 stone slopes of some of the hills in the Kiamichi range. That it once 

 extended much farther south and west than its present general range is 

 indicated by its presence in protected situations here, where it is probably 

 making its last stand. In much the same case is Fraxinus quadrangulata 

 Michx., which is also essentially a species of rocky hills and mountainous 

 regions. On the other hand are such southern and southwestern trees as 

 Carya myristicaeformis Nutt., Quercus Dnrandii Buckl., Sophora affinis 

 T. & G., Amorpha paniculata T. & G., Tilia caroliniana var. rhoophila 

 Sarg., Sabal minor Pers. and Symplocos tinctoria L'Her., which seldom 

 appear so far north, at least west of the Mississippi. 



There is another group, to which belong Quercus arkansana Sarg., 

 Prunus umbellata var. tarda Wight, P. mexicana var. polyandra Sarg., 

 P. mexicana var. fultonensis Sarg., Crataegus lacera Sarg., C. brachyphylla 

 Sarg., and in a somewhat different degree such species as Carya myris- 

 ticaeformis Nutt. Ulmus serotina Sarg., which are so far as now known either 

 local about the Fulton region or if of wider distribution crop up only here 

 and there in widely detached localities, and are probably surviving rem- 

 nants of species once common and widely dispersed. Quercus arkansana 

 is a form of considerable scientific interest. As already stated it appears 

 to be more nearly related to Q. nigra and Q. marilandica than to any other 

 known species, and in some respects it is intermediate between them. 

 Both of these common southern Oaks have been recorded by Professor 

 E. W. Berry as occurring in the Pleistocene of the Atlantic coast, and I have 



