CHAPTER XIII. 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



BY WILLIAM F. FLINT. 



OTANISTS divide the flora of the United States into several nat- 

 ural districts, while these are again subdivided. The district to 

 which New Hampshire belongs is the great Middle and Northern ; but 

 with such marked difference, especially noticeable in our forest trees, 

 between the northern and southern portions of the state, as to be most 

 properly considered under two nearly equal divisions. Including also, as 

 it does, the greater portion of the small alpine areas found within the 

 eastern part of the United States, and comprising within its short range 

 of sea-coast and the outlying Isles of Shoals a small part of the Maritime 

 district, it presents to us a more interesting field for botanical research 

 than any other area of equal size east of the Mississippi. 



Originally the state, almost without exception, was clothed with a dense 

 forest. This forest presented the same characteristics as at the present 

 day. Its only change is that it has been greatly restricted in area by the 

 hand of man. Its leading trees were pines, spruces, oaks, and hickories, 

 the beech, chestnut, white, red, and sugar maples, the butternut, birches, 

 elm, white and black ashes, basswood, and poplars. Among shrubs were 

 the blueberries, the huckleberry, mountain ash, mountain laurel, azalea, 

 alders, and willows ; and, trailing over rocks and shrubbery, the wild grape, 

 Virginia creeper, and virgin's bower. 



A traveller, passing from one end of the state to the other, cannot fail 



