124 PLANT LIFE OF ALABAMA. 



and flow of the tide, wind their way to the inlets of the Gulf. The 

 tine sand forming the surface as well as the subsoil is closely packed, 

 permitting the water to permeate but slowly, and in consequence is 

 overflowed after every rainfall. The great poverty of the soil is mani- 

 fest in the stunted growth of pines scattered over these flats and the 

 dwarfed cypress and white cedar lining the sand} T banks of the streams. 

 The surface is exsiccated during the dry summer season, and supports 

 a scanty growth of poverty grasses, particularly Aristida spidformis 

 and A., palustris, and the toothache grass {Campyloww aromaticus], 

 with its stout aromatic rootstock deeply buried in the compacted 

 sand, with which are found Scleria torreyana and Lilium catesbaei, 

 and, during the late autumnal rains, the rare Gyrostachys Irevifolia, 

 known also from western Florida. 



Paludial arboreal associations (cypress lyrakes). The bottom lands of 

 the Mobile River and the islands in the delta, overflowed at every 

 freshet, are covered with a high forest of deciduous trees, common to 

 them and the lowlands of the same character along the Tombigbee and 

 Alabama rivers in their course through the Louisianian area. Where 

 the banks are almost perpetually submerged they are covered with 

 cypress. This largest of the Atlantic forest trees was formerly found 

 in the upper part of the river delta in great perfection. The mighty 

 trunks rise to a total height of from 100 to 120 feet and over, with a 

 diameter, measured above the buttresses which expand the bases, of from 

 3 to over 5 feet. The annual rings of growth are extremely narrow 

 and difficult to count. On close investigation the age of full-grown 

 trees can be estimated to vary between 300 and 500 years. They are 

 the sole survivors in this part of the North American continent of an 

 archaic type. The assemblage of these monarchs of the forest in the 

 compact cypress brake, surrounded by the peculiar cone-shaped 

 excrescences (cypress knees) rising from their roots 1 to 2 feet and more 

 above the dark unruffled surface of the water, presents a feature in 

 the arboreal flora of the present at once strange and imposing. As a 

 result of the large demand for their valuable timber, the resources of 

 these brakes in the delta and on the lower Alabama and Tombigbee 

 rivers have been almost exhausted, and in this district the manufac- 

 ture of cypress lumber has at present nearly ceased. The supplies of 

 this timber needed for the manufacture of cypress shingles at Mobile 

 are at present mostly drawn from the more remote brakes on the 

 rivers named and their principal tributaries along their lower course. 

 In these brakes the tupelo gum (Nyssa ayuatica) is the only associate 

 of the cypress, which it rivals in size, end the Carolina swamp ash is 

 the only tree of small size thriving in the gloomy shade beneath these 

 trees. 



In the mire of the swamps above the level of long-continued overflows 

 a variety of hard-wood trees mingle with the cypress and finally super- 



