PRESENT FORESTS OF NORTH AMERICA 37 



interest both in regard to its present botanical features and their 

 bearing on the geologic history of the North American flora, these 

 problems do not enter to any large degree into a discussion of the 

 particular forest trees considered in the present work. 



This region comprises tropical North America which includes 

 all of Central America; the Antilles, Bahamas and Bermudas; 

 and the narrow Atlantic and Pacific Coastal plains of Mexico. 

 Practically the only types of this region that reach the United States 

 are found in the narrow strips along the coast and keys of peninsu- 

 lar Florida which extend northward to about Cape Malabar on the 

 East Coast and to Tampa Bay on the West Coast. This flora is 

 rich in composition but is here of slight economic importance. 

 Some of the sub-tropical forms do not reach these limits and others 

 extend a degree or two farther north. Among the more important 

 trees are the royal palm, mahogany, sea grape, Jamaica dog^vood, 

 machineel, mangrove, etc. 



Throughout the Bahamas and Bermudas true forests are absent 

 and are replaced by coppice growths of a variety of tropical species. 

 The larger islands of the Antilles, at one time probably largely in 

 forest, have suffered greatly from agricultural encroachments, and 

 former primitive practices of making new clearings every few years, 

 which, combined with charcoal burning and the general failure to 

 regard the forests as anything but an enemy of man, have resulted 

 in limiting the forest to the more inaccessible or less readily culti- 

 vated parts of the islands, as is conspicuously the case in Porto 

 Rico. In Cuba the largest of the Antilles, savannas alternate with 

 open forests of Ceiba, Bursera, Spondias, Cedrela, Swietenia 

 Pithecolobium, Lysiloma, Lonchocarpus, and many other tropical 

 species. Tropical jungle or rain forest is less extensive than on 

 the mainland, but is more or less developed on all of the larger 

 islands. 



Central America may be divided into three principal botanical 

 regions although the general type of the forests, disregarding indi- 

 vidual elements, is much the same throughout and has been simi- 

 larly more or less marred by primitive agriculture dating back to 

 a time remote enough to permit so-called virgin forests to cover 



