144 BOTANICAL GAZETTE ~ [AuGUST 
These undoubtedly differ in many respects from the original forests. 
Nevertheless, it seems probable, due to the sprouting capacity of 
the majority of the constituent trees, that in favorable cases, except 
for a decrease in the proportion of hemlock and a corresponding 
increase in the proportion of chestnut, the general aspect of the 
forest has not greatly altered during the last three centuries. The 
composition of this forest, however, was never uniform throughout 
the state. In northwestern Connecticut the original forest was of 
the so-called Northern hardwood type. Here the dominant trees 
were sugar maple, beech, and hemlock, associated with which were 
yellow birch, chestnut, and other hardwoods. Just how large a 
portion of the state was originally clothed by this type of forest 
is uncertain, but it undoubtedly was present throughout the greater 
part of the northern half of the Western Highland and extended 
southward toward the shore of Long Island Sound. Inall probabil- 
ity it was also characteristic of at least the northern portion of the 
trap range and of the northernmost section of the Eastern Highland. 
Along the coast and throughout the greater extent of the Central 
Lowland, so far as can be determined, the most widely distributed 
type of original forest was composed largely of chestnut and various 
oaks. The trees characteristic of the northern hardwood forest 
were also present here, but were relatively less abundant and more 
restricted in their occurrence. In the forests of this area the tulip 
tree was frequently an important component. The original forests 
of the Eastern Highland, except in the northernmost part, would 
appear to have resembled more closely those of the coast and Low- 
land than those of the Western Highland. In the present forests’ 
the prominent trees are the oaks, especially the white and the red 
oak. Chestnut, while present, is much less conspicuous than in 
the Lowland forests. Hemlock, beech, and maple are of subsidiary 
importance. : 
There are other important and even more striking vegetational 
dissimilarities between various parts of the state. The discussion 
of these, however, is reserved for papers in course of preparation, 
in which the plants of the state are to be considered from an 
ecological standpoint.t It was the primary object of the experiments 
rhe first Paper of this series, “The vegetation of Connecticut L Phytogeo- 
Sraphical aspects,” has already been published (Torreya 13: 89-112. 1913). 
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