70 



8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CONIFER-ffi. 



Ridge from southwestern Virginia^ to northeastern Georgia;^ usually growing singly or in small 

 scattered groves o£ a few trees, it is associated in the forest with the northern Hemlock, the White 

 Pine, Gum-trees, Maples, and Hickories, and is probably most abundant in South Carolina on the 

 streams which form the Savannah River.^ 



The wood of Tsuga Caroliniana is light, soft, not strong, brittle, and coarse-grained ; it is pale 

 brown tinged with red, with thin nearly white sapwood, and contains narrow inconspicuous bands of 

 small summer cells and numerous thin medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood 

 is 0.4275, a cubic foot weighing 26.64 pounds.* 



Unnoticed by the botanists who frequently explored the southern Appalachian Mountains during 

 the last half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, Tsuga Caroliniana was 



_ _ 



first distinguished in 1850^ by Professor L. R. Gibbes.^ It was introduced into northern gardens in 

 1881 through the Arnold Arboretum and has proved perfectly suited to the climate of New England. 

 Of denser habit than the northern Hemlock, and with longer darker green more lustrous and more 



r 



persistent leaves, it promises to excel even that tree as an ornament of parks and gardens. 



^ In June, 1892, Tsuga Caroliniana was found by N. L. and 

 Elizabetli G- Britton and Anna Murray Vail in the north fork of 

 the Houston Kiver valley, Smythe County, Virginia, at an altitude 

 of two thousand two hundred feet above the sea ; and the follow- 

 ing year it was detected by Mr. John K. Small near Broad Ford 

 and along Comer Creek, Smythe County, and on Farmer Mountain 

 on New River, Carroll County, in the same state. 



2 In August, 1895, Tsuga Caroliniana was found by Mr. John K. 

 Small near Tallula Falls, Habersham County, Georgia, at an eleva- 

 tion of only sixteen hundred feet above the sea-level. 



^ See Sargent, Garden and Forest, ii. 267, f . 



^ Probably Tsuga Caroliniana, like the northern Hemlock, 

 usually grows slowly. The log specimen in the Jesup Collection 

 of North American Woods in the American Museum of Natural 

 History, New York, procured from western South Carolina, is four- 

 teen and one half inches in diameter inside the bark, and one hun- 

 dred and seventy years old. During its last twenty years, however, 

 this trunk increased four and a half inches in diameter, the sapwood 

 being seven eighths of an inch in thickness, with only nine layers of 



annual growth. 



^ In 1842 a specimen of this Hemlock, without fruit, was col- 

 lected by Professor Asa Gray on Bluff Mountain, North Carolina, 

 but was not dlstingnished by him from the northern species. In 

 1850 Professor Gibbes found it in both North and South Carolina ; 

 and in 1856 he sent specimens to Professor Gray with the sugges- 

 tion that the tree should be called Pinus laxa, a name which was 

 never published. At a meeting of the Elliott Society, held in 

 Charleston, South Carolina, in July, 1858, he reported his discov- 

 ery. (See Proc. Elliott Soc. i. 286, where occurs the first printed 

 mention of this tree.) 



« Lewis Beeve Gibbes (August 14, 1810-November 21, 1894), 

 the oldest child of Lewis Ladson Gibbes and Maria Henrietta 



of his classical education was laid at the Grammar School of the 

 University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in the years 1821 and 

 1822, but he was fitted for college at the Pendleton Academy, South 

 Carolina, between 1823 and 1827. In this last year he was admit- 

 ted to the junior class of the South Carolina College at Columbia and 

 was graduated in December, 1829, with the highest honors. At the 

 end of 1831, having previously performed the duties of principal 

 of Pendleton Academy, giving instruction in the classics and in 

 mathematics, he began the study of medicine at Charleston, but 

 before the close of another year was appointed tutor in mathe- 

 matics in the College of South Carolina. Losing this position by 

 reason of a revolution in the college in December, 1834, when 

 all the officers were requested to resign, on the following day he 

 was made professor of mathematics in the new organization, but 

 resigned during the next year, and in 1836 visited Paris for the 

 purpose of completing his medical education and studying physics 

 and botany. Returning to Charleston in 1838, with the intention 

 of practicing medicine, he was appointed professor of mathematics 

 in the College of Charleston, where he retained his chair until July, 

 1892, teaching physics, chemistry, and mineralogy. Botany and 

 various departments of zoology were also among his special studies. 

 Between 1848 and 1853 Professor Gibbes was engaged in making 

 observations for the Coast Survey to determine the differences of 

 longitude between Charleston and various points on the Atlantic 

 coast. He was the author of numerous papers on astronomy, 

 physics, and zoology, printed In various scientific periodicals and 

 in the Proceedings of learned societies. His most important bo- 

 tanical papers are A Catalogue of the Phmnogamous Plants of Colum- 

 bia, South Carolina, and its Vicinity, published in October, 1835, 

 which contains the names of about nine hundred species, accom- 

 panied in some cases by critical notes, and the Botany of Edings 

 Bay, published in 1859 in the first volume of the Proceedings of 



Drayton, was born in Charleston, South Carolina. The foundation the Elliott Society. 



