478 Minnesota Plant Life. 



mon poplar. Dogwoods, roses, hawthorns, plums, ashes and 

 other shrubs are prominent as components of this general 

 formation. Along with these go usually a number of wand 

 plants, herbs that thrust their slender stems up between the 

 shrubs, thus getting illumination. Of these the goldenrods, the 

 willow-herbs, the evening-primroses and the asters are ex- 

 amples. Here, too, one will find a variety of climbing or twin- 

 ing herbs or vines, and the wild beans and wild peanuts, the 

 bindweeds and morning-glories, are to be expected. The floor 

 of the underbrush will be occupied by a number of little grasses 



FIG. 237. Autumnal underbrush, Mississippi river, between Minneapolis 

 and St. Paul. Golden rods, asters and sumac. After photograph 

 by Williams. 



and low herbs, some of which may be vagrant xerophytes with 

 the rosette habit of growth or with other characters by which 

 they can be recognized. 



Hardwood forest. The hardwood forest of Minnesota, espe- 

 cially as developed along river bottoms, where it is made up 

 of ashes, maples, basswoods, oaks and elms, furnishes an ex- 

 ample of what is meant by mesophytic forest. Upon sand bar- 

 rens where the bur-oak finds a congenial home the conditions 

 are almost xerophytic and, therefore, oak-barrens were men- 

 tioned under a previous topic. 



