A quantitative study of the more conspicuous vegetation of certain 
natural subdivisions of the coastal plain, as observed in 
traveling from Georgia to New York in July 
ROLAND M. HARPER 
In July, 1906, I made a zigzag journey from Georgia northeast- 
ward through the coastal plain, and after the botanical notes 
resulting therefrom had been digested so as to bring all the records 
of each species together, I prepared from them lists of plants which 
seemed to be common in all the states studied, and of some which 
were evidently more common in one state or region than in others, 
and also pointed out certain peculiarities of distribution of indi- 
vidual species. In the published account of this trip* some at- 
tention was paid also to general geographical features, aspects 
of vegetation, and plant habitats, but I did not do much in the 
way of defining natural geographical regions within the coastal 
plain, as the relations between vegetation and geology were not 
so evident in the Carolinas as in the states farther west. 
Three years later I went through the coastal plain of the same 
States in the same direction, but by as different a route as possible, 
and afterward, instead of grouping my notes by speciesas before, 
I tried to determine the boundaries of the minor vegetation prov- 
inces that I had passed through, and then made a rough quanti- 
tative study + of the vegetation—or rather as much of it as could 
be identified from the car window—of each province. 
On this second trip I started northward from Savannah on the 
afternoon of July 26, 1909, crossed the Savannah River into South 
Carolina about 33 miles out, and struck the fall-line at Columbia, 
about 140 miles due north of my starting-point. Remaining on 
the same train, I was then carried northeastward along or near the 
fall-line 106 miles, to Hamlet, North Carolina, but missed the last 
*Bull. Torrey Club 34: 351-377. O07 
TtMost studies of vegetation in the past inn been of an essentially qualitative 
nature, but quantitative work ought to be just as useful in phytogeography as it is 
in chemistry 
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