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greens, beds nos. § to 7 at conservatory range 1 and the 
border screen of the Iris garden may be cited as examples. 
10. The Hemlock Forest 
The forest of Canadian hemlock spruce along the Bronx 
River, within the portion of Bronx Park set apart for the 
New York Botanical Garden, is one of the most noteworthy 
natural features of the Borough of The Bronx, and has been 
characterized by a distinguished citizen as “‘the most 
precious natural possession of the city of New York.” 
This forest exists in the northern part of Bronx Park on 
the banks of the river and their contiguous hills; its greater 
area is on the western side of the stream, but it occupies a 
considerable space on the eastern side above the mansion 
and below the boulder bridge. The area west of the river 
extends from just above this bridge down stream to a 
point nearly opposite the old Lorillard snuff mill, and is 
the part commonly designated “Hemlock Grove.” Its 
total length along the river is approximately 3,000 feet; its 
greatest width, 900 feet, is at a point on the river about 
700 feet stag the waterfall at the mansion. The total 
area occupied by the trees on both sides of the river is be- 
tween thirty-five and forty acres. 
While this area is mostly covered by the hemlock spruces, 
and although they form its predominant vegetation, other 
trees are by no means lacking; beech, ash, sweet birch, 
red maple, hickories, oaks, dogwood, tulip-tree and other 
trees occur, and their foliage protects the hemlocks from the 
sun in summer to a very considerable extent; there are no 
coniferous trees other than the hemlock, however, within 
the forest proper. The shade is too dense for the existence 
of much low vegetation, and this is also unable to grow at all 
vigorously in the soil formed largely of the decaying resi- 
nous hemlock leaves; it is only in open places left by the 
occasional uprooting of a tree or trees by gales that we see 
any considerable number of shrubs or herbaceous plants, 
their seeds brought into the forest by wind or by birds. In 
