GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES. 139 



Timber distribution.] 



in Otter Tail county, and northward along the west side of Otter Tail river 

 and the associated lakes, to the Rice lakes in the White Earth Indian res- 

 ervation, leaving the state about twenty-five miles east of the Red river 

 of the North. That portion of the state north and east of this line is not 

 wholly a pine-producing area, but various species of deciduous trees con- 

 stitute a large part of the forest throughout the most of it, and in some 

 large tracts other members of the cone-bearing family make up nearly the 

 whole. In the northern part of the state, between Red lake and the lake 

 of the Woads, and also very generally eastward to Vermilion lake, the 

 country is flat and poorly drained, the trees consisting largely of tamarack 

 and spruce, with only scattering slight elevations where the white pine 

 flourishes. The Banksian pine is found abundantly on the plains of modi- 

 fied drift on the upper St. Croix, and its affluents from the west, also in a 

 similar situation on. the upper waters of the St. Louis, as well as through- 

 out the region of bare rock in the northeastern part of the state. The 

 other coniferous species are tamarack (Larix Americana), spruce (Picea 

 nit/fa and alba), white cedar (Thuja occidentalis), each of which covers large 

 tracts ; balsam fir (Abies balsamea), which is abundantly mingled with the 

 deciduous forests of the northern part of the state, and occurs locally as far 

 south as the forests of northwestern Fillmore county, near the Iowa state 

 boundary; red cedar (Juniperus Virginiand), which grows about the bluffs of 

 lakes in the central part of the state, and also extends southward along 

 the Mississippi river and other streams, to the southern boundary of the 

 state ; the American yew (Taxus baccata, var. Canadensis), which is a shrub 

 forming dense undergrowth in the rolling forest-covered tracts in the north- 

 eastern part of the state, particularly northwest of lake Superior ; juniper 

 (Juniperus communis), which is mostly found in the central part, and another 

 prostrate juniper which probably is J. Sabina, var. procumbens, found mainly 

 in the northern part of the state. Besides these, Tsuga Canadensis, or 

 hemlock, has been reported, as well as Pinus mitis, yellow pine, but these 

 identifications are considered doubtful. 



The deciduous forest consists principally of various species of oak, 

 elm, bass, poplar, maple, and ash, of which the detailed distribution will be 

 given in another chapter. Beech does not occur native, nor chestnut, but 

 the black walnut (Jitglans nigrd) and the Kentucky coffee-tree (Gymno- 



