(188 ) 
4. 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 Lorillard 
mansion and below the ‘‘ Blue Bridge.” The area west of 
the river extends from just above the ‘‘ Blue 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, goo feet, is at a point on the river about 7oo 
feet above the water fall at the Lorillard mansion. The 
total area occupied by the trees on both sides of the river is 
between 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, chestnut, sweet birch, 
ted maple, hickory, oaks, dogwood, tulip-tree, and other 
wees 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 resinous 
hemlock leaves; it is only in open places left by the occa- 
sional 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 fact, 
the floor of the forest is characteristically devoid of vegeta- 
tion, a feature shown by other forests of hemlock situated 
further north. The contrast in passing from the hemlock 
