Note on the Flora of Mississippi * 



By E. N. Lowe. 



So little attention has been given to the flora of Mis- 

 sissippi in the past, and so little has been published upon 

 the subject, that available data are scant and difficult to 

 get by those seeking information. This fact we deem a 

 sufficient excuse for this brief sketch of our flora. The 

 Geological Survey in the coiirse of several years of field 

 work has accumulated considerable botanical material, 

 together with notes of observations made in the field. 

 These are as yet very imperfect, but will form the basis 

 for the following sketch. 



In the foregoing report (Bulletin No. 7) on the Forest 

 Conditions of Mississippi, the area of the State has been 

 divided into eight forest regions. So far as our data now 

 available shows, these forest regions, which are rather 

 closely related to geological structure, correspond in a 

 general way with the floral distribution in the state. Geo- 

 logical structure has such a direct influence on topography 

 and soil, which in turn directly influence the distri- 

 bution of plant species, that a geological map of the state 

 would for present purposes answer for a floral map of the 

 state. Therefore, the accompanying sketch map, which 

 represents the distribution of the geological formations 

 of the state (differing slightly from that used in Bulletin 

 No. 7), will be used in this study of the flora, the floral 

 regions being represented on the map by the geologic and 

 soil divisions. The correspondence is not exact, but close 

 enough for present purposes. 



Consulting the map it will be seen that in the extreme 

 northeast comer of the state a small narrow division is 

 marked off and called the Northeastern or Tennessee River 

 Hills. The area is one of high broken topography — orig- 

 inally a plateau, but now much cut up by erosion into 

 steep hills and ridges. Much of the rock is hard lime- 

 stone, sandstone and chert of the Carboniferous formation. 



*In this paper the botanical nomenclature of Chapman and the earlier editions of 

 Gray has been used rather than that of later botanists, for the reason that I believe 

 it will be more familiar to the majority of the readers of this bulletin, as it is to 

 myself. 



I wish to acknowledge here indebtedness to Lloyd and Tracy's Insular Flora of 

 Mississippi and Louisiana for discussion of the strand Flora of Mississippi. 



