58 



south into Haralson, one ascends rather abruptly the escarpment 

 (known here as Dugdown Mountain) at the edge of the Meta- 

 morphic region, and emerges onto a comparatively level region 

 of considerable elevation. In Haralson County the average alti- 

 tude is something like 1,300 feet (the extremes about 900 and 

 1,600), and Pinus pabistris is very common, though never con- 

 stituting a majority of the forest growth as it does in the pine- 

 barrens. In Carroll County the general elevation is a little less 

 and this pine not quite so abundant, though some individuals of 

 it are nearly if not quite three feet in diameter. 



In these two Middle Georgia counties (Haralson and Carroll) 

 Piujis Taeda and P. cchiiiata occur commonly with P. pahistris, 

 or at least at the same altitudes. P. Jlrgiuiaiia is not known 

 south of Floyd County.* 



A rather remarkable feature of the occurrence oi Pinus palustris 

 in upper Georgia is its decided preference for high altitudes. In 

 t'hat portion of the state northwest of the Chattahoochee River it 

 is not often seen below 1,000 feet ; while in the coastal plain, its 

 normal home, there is very little of it above 400 feet. In the 

 mountains of Alabama it flourishes at even higher altitudes than 

 in Georgia, according to Dr. Mohr,t who found it at nearly 2,000 

 feet in Talladega County in 1896. 



Why this species grows among the mountains at all is a ques- 

 tion which has been very little discussed and never satisfactorily 

 answered, j Dr. Mohr thought the nature of the soil fully ac- 

 counted for it, but there are other factors to be taken into con- 

 sideration. For the present range of /'. palicstns in upper Geor- 

 gia is not coextensive with any particular type of soil, and there 

 are many places in eastern Middle Georgia which are equally 

 sandy but have no long-leaf pine. 



*I should mention here perhaps thai llie " Pin us piiugcns''' which I reported a 

 few years ago as occurring in Northwest Georgia (Hull. Torrey Club, 28: 462. 

 1901 ) was incorrectly identified, and is really /'. I'iri^iiiidnn. Its appearance in 

 Georgia is so difTerent from that of the scrubby specimens which one sees along the 

 fall-line in Maryland and Virginia that I did not at first recognize it to be the same. 



t See his " Timber Pines of the Southern United States" (revised edition), p. 73 ; 

 also "Plant Life of Alabama," pp. 60, 323. 



X See in this connection Mr. Kearney's interesting paper in Science for November 

 30, 1900, where he discusses the occurrence of many other coastal plain plants in the 

 mountains of Tennessee and .Mabama. 



