106 PLANT LIFE OF ALABAMA. 



found, however, that in this plant an almost ineradicable pestiferous 

 weed had been introduced, its cultivation was restricted to low, 

 undrained tracts, unfit for other crops. Although peaches, plums, 

 pears, the fig, and grapes succeed on the ridges, the cultivation of 

 these fruits is much neglected, and does not supply even a small part 

 of the home demand. 



.MARITIME PINE REGION. 



The great belt of long-leaf pine forest, which extends almost without 

 interruption from southeastern Virginia over the coast region of the 

 Atlantic States to the lowlands of the Mississippi River, adjoins on its 

 southern border the Central Prairie belt. 



UPPER DIVISION OF THE COAST PINE BELT OR REGION OF MIXED TREE GROWTH. 



Physiographical features* In the upper part of this pine belt, from 

 South Carolina to eastern^ Mississippi, a mixed growth of pine and 

 broad-leaved evergreen trees alternates with belts or rather strips of 

 pure long-leaf pine forest. In Alabama this region of cone-bearing 

 and broad-leaved evergreen and deciduous trees is confined within the 

 limits of the older Tertiary strata, which in this State cover about one- 

 half of the area of the Coast Pine belt, although the beds of drifted 

 sands and gravels of a more recent formation overlie the older rocks 

 in large areas. In its climatic conditions this region differs but slightly 

 from the foregoing. Its floral character is difficult to define. Broadly 

 stated, it consists in the increased frequency of types which are at home 

 in the Louisianian area, and in distinction from regions farther north, of 

 a tree growth in which, though otherwise similar, the long-leaf pine in 

 its highest development predominates. Equally difficult is the estab- 

 lishment of the limits of this floral region. It has been already men- 

 tioned that the tree growth in the eastern part of the Central Prairie 

 region is scarcely to be distinguished from the forest flora of this 

 region. Toward the west the border is more clearly outlined by the 

 hilly uplands of the lowest Tertiary strata rising above the Cretaceous 

 plain. The southern border of this region is frequently overlapped 

 by the pure forests of long-leaf pine of the lower division of the Coast 

 Pine belt, and it can.. be defined on stratigraphical grounds only by 

 being identified with the lines which mark the most southern outcrops 

 of the underlying Tertiary rocks. Defined on this basis the area in 

 question contains about 9,000 square miles, occupying the following 

 counties or portions of counties: Parts of Sumter; all or nearly all of 

 Choctaw, Clarke, Monroe, Butler, Conecuh; portions of Covington, 

 Montgomery, Bullock, Barbour, Pike, and nearly all of Coffee, Dale, 

 and Henry. Along its northern border where the ligmtic strata pre- 

 vail the uplands rise to an elevation at the highest of about 400 feet 

 above tide water, spreading out into table-lands of greater or less 



