INTRODUCTION 9 



this interesting region. The map {pi. j) copied from Stone's book 

 well shows the limits of the pine-barrens. The darker colored 

 portion surrounding the white is not pine-barren in character, 

 and maintains a very different flora from the pine-barrens. 



15. The writer in 1912 (Torreya 12: 229-242) has attempted - 

 to show that the pine-barrens are the result of geologic processes, 

 and part of that paper is here utilized. Dr. Stone in his flora of 

 the pine-barrens, perhaps the best local flora ever written in 

 America, has said: "Some attempt has been made to correlate 

 these areas or parts of them (the coastal plain, including the pine- 

 barrens) with the underlying geological formation, but . . . such 

 correlation is not possible." 



16. It is the firm conviction of the writer that notwithstanding 

 this assertion, it will be found that a geological explanation is 

 the only one that will fit the facts and serve to elucidate the pe- 

 culiarly local, often endemic, nature of the pine-barren flora. 

 Others have also sought geological explanation for the origin of 

 this region, and a paleobotanist was the first to suggest the possi- 

 bility of there being any relationship between the flora and the 

 geology of southern New Jersey.* It was Hollick's suggestion 

 that the pine-barrens are co-extensive with the Tertiary sands 

 and gravels that Stone has shown must be revised. Recent 

 collections, the significance of which was, of course, unknown to 

 Hollick in 1899, have led to the abandonment of his theory that 

 the pine-barrens or "coniferous zone" are co-extensive with the 

 Tertiary sands and gravels. 



17. Much later, we find Harshbergerf attributing the vegeta- 

 tion about the edges of the pine-barrens to the "post Pensauken 

 uplift of the New Jersey geologists." But he follows Hollick in 

 saying that "the Tertiary soils extend southward along the 

 Atlantic Ocean to Florida and are occupied by a pine-barren 

 flora."| This, as Stone's work has shown, must be modified. 

 But this statement of Hollick's, subsequently used in Harsh- 

 berger's work, contains such a large measure of truth in relation 

 to the origin of this unique region, that it is only to be abandoned 



* Hollick, A. The relation between forestry and geology in New Jersey. Am. Nat. 

 33:1-14. 1899. See also Ann. Rept. N. J. State Geologist for 1899. Report on Forests, 

 t Harshberger, J. \V. Phytogeographic Survey of N. Am. 219. 1911. 

 \ Harshberger, J. W. Loc. tit. 218. 



