68 PLA1ST LIFE OF ALABAMA. 



cutwena, P. maculata, and 1\ divaricata, the dazzling orange of the but- 

 terfly weed (Asdepias tuberosa), the pink of Monardajixl ul<>*<i and M. rus- 

 seiliana, the blue of Scutellaria versicolor and Phacelia bipinnata, and 

 the golden flowers of Senecio balsamitae, S. earlei, and Coreopsis 

 auriculata, while later in the season Solidago amplexicaulis, S. lati- 

 folia, S. curtisii, and S.caesia axillaris enliven these low hills. 



The perfectly level tracts of a cold, gray, impervious soil, a perfect 

 mire during the season of rain and a hard crusty mass torn by many 

 fissures while baking in the summer's sun, form a peculiar feature in 

 the topography and flora of the Coosa Valley. These flats extend for 

 many miles in the main valley where the impervious Cambrian slates 

 form its floor. They are for the greater part covered with a low 

 forest of dwarfed trees, black jack, Texan oak, post oak scarcely over 

 20 feet high, with equally stunted loblolly more rarely short-leaf and 

 scrub pines scattered among them. These dwarfed woods are ren- 

 dered truly impenetrable by the multitude of shrubby hawthorns 

 (Crataegus crus-galli, C. spathulata, C. apiifolla), Southern crab apple, 

 persimmon, and black gum (Nyssa multiftora), entangled with the 

 tough vines of bamboo briers (Smilax bona-nox, S. laurifolia] and 

 forming a perfect maze of green. In the bare openings the following 

 form the very open vegetation upon the ashy gray flats: 



Rosa humilis. Cracca virginiana. 



Kneiffia suffruticosa. Coreopsis crassifolia. 



Asdepias variegata. Juncus acuminotus deMlis. 

 Apocynum cannabinum. 



The last of these is the most frequent. Rosa humilis is here reduced 

 to a height of 6 to 10 inches. 



No grasses or cyperaceous plants inhabiting a damp soil are met 

 with, a fact readily accounted for when the sharp extremes of wet and 

 dry to which these flats are subjected and the total absence of decayed 

 vegetable matter are considered. 



Cultural plant formations. About 25 per cent of the area of this 

 subdivision is farm land more or less subjected to the plow; the rest is 

 under tree covering. High forests in their original condition prevail 

 on the steep mountains, which are not profitable for tillage, and in 

 valleys remote from the highways of traffic. In the metamorphic area 

 the lower hills and valleys with a warm loamy soil, resulting from the 

 decomposition of the more basic schists and softer shales and augitic 

 or feldspathic gneiss, worn down far beyond their original level, are 

 of high and lasting fertility and almost entirely under cultivation, 

 which is also to be said of the fertile lands of the Coosa Valley. Over 

 one-half of the tilled lands are devoted to cotton, broad fields of which 

 alternate with smaller ones of Indian corn (Zea mays), of small grains 

 (mostly oats, wheat, and rye), and forage crops (clover and meadow 

 grasses), with patches of the Chinese sugar cane or sorghum (Sorghum 



