139 



gether. Mr. Ward gladly agreed to serve as guide for us. So, 

 having completed arrangements for the trip, we set out at day- 

 break on a Saturday morning in late April. 



After motoring several hundred miles, we arrived about noon 

 at Blountstown, Florida. Here we crossed the broad, peaceful, 

 muddy waters of the Apalachicola on an obselescent ferry, and 

 hurried on to Bristol. 



Mr. Ward met us with a cordial welcome, told us that he 

 had been awaiting our arrival and that he was ready to accom- 

 pany us. It was indeed fortunate that we were able to secure 

 him as our guide, for had it not been for him we would never 

 have been able to locate the trees we were looking for. 



It was a matter of only a few miles' drive to^the site of the 

 trees. Over a little-travelled, sandy country road, bordered for 

 the most of the way by a scant low growth of "black jack" 

 oaks interspersed with pines, we rode until stopped by a wire 

 fence which blocked the faint outlines of the old and almost 

 forgotten roadway. Stopping our car near the fence, we pro- 

 ceeded on foot, ever watchful for any sign of the trees we sought. 



For a short distance we followed a brook which flowed slug- 

 gishly along under a dense canopy of magnolias, sweet-gums, 

 and underbrush. Then, on emerging into the open, we went 

 along a cattle-trail that wound across a broad field, quite free 

 of vegetation except for patches of grass and an occasional live- 

 oak, but dotted everywhere with gopher holes. When we next 

 entered the woods we came upon a wide ravine some forty or 

 fifty feet deep with almost precipitous sides. It was here, on a 

 steep side of this ravine, that we first sighted tumion; and it was 

 up and down the side of this long ravine that we later found 

 more and more tumion and eventually a few dozen yews. 



The symmetrical and gracefully-drooping tumion ranged in 

 size from small plants not more than a few inches high to mid- 

 dle-sized trees twenty feet tall; and dominated the landscape. 

 In both form and foliage they are so different from other trees 

 growing thereabout, the yew excepted, that one almost loses 

 sight of everything but of them. A lover of trees surely cannot 

 help being impressed by their unusual growth and beauty. 



Clambering up and down the steep cliffs, on the thick car- 

 pet of leaves of which we slipped and fell innumerable times, 

 we wandered through scores of tumion trees before catching 



