and along the western and northern parts, but in central Illinois were 

 restricted to the stream valleys in the prairie counties. 



The number of tree species found in these original forests was 

 greater than in any state of similar or higher latitude and was probably 

 surpassed by but nine in the United States. Omitting the genus Crataegus 

 (hawthorn) Sargent '22 lists the number of native tree species in certain 

 states as follows: Florida, 226; Texas, 186; Georgia, 175; North Caro- 

 lina, 169; South Carolina, 154; Alabama, 15-1; Mississippi, 139; Tennes- 

 see, 130; Louisiana, 129; Arkansas, 120; California, 116; Indiana. 114; 

 Pennsylvania, 110; New York, 102. Excluding the Crataegi there are 

 herbarium specimens of at least 124 native tree species, and 23 additional 

 varieties of some of them, which have been collected in Illinois, and there 

 are 15 naturalized species. 



The range in variety of species from the cypress-gum forests of 

 southern Illinois to the larch swamps of northern Illinois was matched by 

 very wide extremes in the development of the trees. In the lower Ohio 

 and Wabash valleys grew the largest hardwoods on this continent, while 

 on the sand plains of parts of the Mississippi Valley the scrub oak scarce- 

 ly attained the height of a tree. 



A general description of the original forests follows : In the bottom- 

 lands of the extreme southern region a belt of cypress and mixed hard- 

 woods extended from central Wabash county down the Wabash and Ohio 

 rivers and up the Mississippi as far as southern Union county. In the 

 Wabash country cypress did not extend far from the main river bottom, 

 but in the extreme southern part it grew in the sloughs of the Cache River 

 area and extended up some of the lesser tributaries of the Cache. In this 

 region associated species were tupelo .gum, water elm, swamp cottonwood, 

 red gum, and soft maple. Elsewhere tupelo was probably supplanted by 

 soft maple, red gum, and elm. The cypress of Illinois never attained 

 the size of the same species to the south, but it has been a valuable timber 

 tree even here. 



Extending along the flood-plains of the larger streams of the state 

 was a splendid hardwood forest. That in the Ohio- Wabash region was 

 the finest hardwood type in the country, and the forests along the other 

 streams were scarcely less impressive in number of species and in the size 

 of individual trees. The principal species were pecan, bitternut, shell- 

 bark and mocker-nut hickories, willows, cottonwood and swamp cotton- 

 wood, river birch, white, bur, lyre-leaved, yellow, swamp-white, cow, 

 Schneck's, pin, shingle, and swamp Spanish oaks ; white elm, hackberry, 

 red gum, sycamore, Kentucky coflfee-tree, honey locust, red and silver 

 maples, box-elder, and blue, red, green, black, and white ashes. Catalpa 

 grew in the \\'abash-Ohio region. In the Kaskaskia bottomland pin oak 

 had a tendency to fomi nearly pure stands. Towards the northern part of 

 the state river birch was frequent on the bottomlands, but swamp cotton- 

 wood, several oaks, and red gum, did not grow there. Bur oak was largely 

 restricted to the bottomlands in the southern part of the state ; but in the 

 northern region it grew extensively on the uplands as well. The syca- 



