FORESTS OF UPPER DIVISION OF COAST PINE BELT. 107 



width, not rarely interrupted by steep ridges where the lowest Terti- 

 ary strata offered greatest resistance to erosion. The highest ridges 

 are frequently capped with the sands and gravels of the Lafayette 

 formation, which are under cover of the long-leaf pine, as are likewise 

 the rugged hills of flinty clay stones and siliceous rocks of the buhr- 

 stone strata which traverse the central part of this region in a south- 

 easterly and northwesterly direction, sloping toward the east. East 

 of Patsaliga Creek the hills become less prominent, the softer strata of 

 the Eocene Tertiary spread out into undulating table-lands, and the 

 generous brown soil supports the mixed growth of xerophile and 

 mesophile woody species, evergreen and deciduous, characteristic of 

 the region. Toward the south the surface becomes less broken. East 

 of the Alabama River the drifted deposits form broad table-lands 

 between the streams, occasionally inclosing more or less extensive 

 tracts with the calcareous strata of the Middle Tertiary for the surface 

 rock, very similar in their soil and vegetation to the post-oak prairies 

 of the preceding region. In Dale County and westward to the State 

 line beds of white sand (Ozark sands) overspread the loamy sands and 

 gravels, rendering the soil arid and sterile. 



West of the Alabama River, in the southern part of Clarke and 

 Choctaw counties, calcareous strata form the surface rock over large 

 areas identical in their soil conditions and the character of their vege- 

 tation with the isolated tracts farther east just mentioned. 



Xerophile forests. The rocky ridges of the Buhrstone, or those 

 capped with the more recent drifted strata, are covered with magnifi- 

 cent forests of long-leaf pine which are nowhere surpassed in their 

 timber wealth within the range of this tree. This applies particularly 

 to the forests which cover the hills between the Alabama and Tom- 

 bigbee rivers. By careful estimates made upon a number of plots, 

 selected at random, the yield of a single acre will vary from 10,000 to 

 18,000 feet and over of merchantable timber. In these forests, which 

 grow from a deep warm soil consisting of sandy loams, dogwood and 

 black jack form the scanty undergrowth. The rocky crests and most 

 abrupt declivities of the highest of these hills afford but a scanty foot- 

 hold to the pine. The rocky ground is sparingly covered by the fol- 

 lowing shrubs, all of them bushes, except the last, which is a creeper 

 branching from the base: 



Vaccinium staminewn (deerberry) . Viburnum acerifolium (maple-leaved ar- 



Gaylussacia dumosa (dwarf huckleberry) . rowwood) . 



Vaccinium myrsinites (bilberry) . Smilax bona-nox forma pandurata (bam- 



boo brier) . 



Forests of long-leaf pine predominate wherever the older rocks are 

 deeply hidden under the sands and gravels, and where this region 

 passes imperceptibly into the pine uplands of the Lower Division of 

 the Maritime Pine belt. The herbaceous plant associations in these 



