92 PLANT LIFE OF ALABAMA. 



Mesophile forests. The forests of the fertile valleys and the inclosing 

 hillsides of a somewhat fertile soil are heavily timbered. The South- 

 ern hackberry ( Cdtis mississippiensis], honey locust, and large, sweet 

 or red gum (Liquidambar styracifiud), become more frequent among 

 the abundant cow oak, Southern red oak, Spanish oak, and the more 

 scattered tulip trees, white ash, and hickories of the lowlands, and the 

 scarce black walnut. The timber growth on the larger tributaries of 

 the Warrior, particularly the Mulberry fork and its numerous branches 

 (Cane, Lost, Wolf, and others) crossed by the writer, has been but 

 slightly encroached upon. The loblolly pine is confined to the narrow 

 bottoms along the banks of the streams. In the semiswampy bottom 

 of the Luxapallila, of a cold, somewhat sandy, and compact soil, this pine 

 is found of large dimensions, scattered among beech, sweet gum, willow 

 oak, cow oak, water oak, and laurel oak, the last two now becoming 

 more frequent than observed farther north. The hillsides with a fresh 

 soil and the openings in these forests are in the spring and early sum- 

 mer adorned by the flowers of the umbrella tree (Magnolia, tripetala), 

 Fraser magnolia (M.fraseri), and large-leaf magnolia (M. macrophyUa], 

 by the bloom of the Carolina silverbell, and by the profusion of the 

 delicate white-flowered spikes of the small-flowered buckeye (Aesculus 

 parviftora) and the dense clusters of Hydrangea quercifolia, known 

 as sevenbark, both of these shrubs, strictly southern Appalachian, 

 extending along the mountains to South Carolina and southwestern 

 Virginia, respectively, and southward to the Tertiary hills. 



The importance of the forests of the "Hill Country of Alabama," 

 the great mineral region of the State, in connection with the wealth 

 hidden in the ground beneath them, can not be too highly appreciated. 

 The mining of every ton of coal requires half a cubic foot of timber. 

 To this demand of the miner must be added the large drafts upon 

 these forests for charcoal and for lumber, which are augmenting with 

 the rapid increase of the population at the centers of mining and other 

 industries. 



Herbaceous plant associations. The herbaceous flora of the Lower 

 Hills, with its associations of species common on the table-lands and 

 in the higher valleys of the mountain region, mingling with forms 

 more or less frequent in the Louisianian area, differs but slightly in 

 its general character from the similarly mixed flora of the southern 

 edge of the metamorphic region. Characteristic, however, is the 

 occurrence of a few endemic types confined to a single locality in this 

 region and of others of a peculiarly local distribution rarely found 

 elsewhere in the Carolinian and Louisianian areas. Neviusia alabam- 

 ensis has already been mentioned as a monotype endemic, to this 

 region. To this is to be added Croton alabamensis, presently to be 

 further discussed. Phacelia "bipwmata brevistylis is known only from 

 the banks of the Warrior River near Tuscaloosa, and Croomia pauci- 



