30 



Cypress Knees, which are most helpful in expediting change of water into 

 land sufficiently dry to be capable of supporting the more fastidious in re- 

 gard to moisture conditions. 



Here we should note the remarkable adaptation to divers conditions of 

 some of the tree species. Trees of the swamp, or at least many of them, 

 seem to indicate their independence of moisture conditions by the range of 

 climate and soil in which they are found. In fact, they grow in the swamp, 

 not because it is their most suitable locality, but because they are the ones 

 that can do so, to the exclusion of other competitors. The Bald Cypress, 

 in Lake Drummond itself, will grow in the dry soil and droughty atmos- 

 phere of Texas and Mexico; the Oaks, which associate with it in the 



THE SKIRMISH LINE OF THE FOREST, ARIZONA. 



swamp, will occupy almost any soil or site; the Red or Sweet Gum or 

 Liquidambar, which has lately become an important lumber producer, is 

 found in similar ranges of habitat; the same Juniper or Red Cedar 

 which in the swamps of Florida is a large tree and makes the soft material 

 for our pencils, covers also the driest ridges of the Rockies and Interior 

 Basin west of the Rocky Mountains, with a gnarly growth and hard tex- 

 ture, supplying the most lasting poles and posts. Thanks to the taste of 

 the birds for its berries, it finds ready dissemination over a wide field of 



