204 



environs of Gulfport was that little-known Sari-acenia which 

 until recently was confused with ^. flava. (I saw it also the 

 next day in the northwestern part of Mobile County, Ala- 

 bama.) Prof. J. M. Macfarlane * has pointed out its distinguishing 

 characters, but in view of its present known range his referring 

 it to 5. Catesbaei Ell. seems unwarranted. According to his 

 (unpublished) observations it does not occur east, nor ^. flava 

 west, of the Alabama River ; and since traveling through most 

 of the coastal plain counties of Alabama I can offer no evidence 

 to the contrary. 



Between Gulfport and Biloxi the country looks much like the 

 flat pine-barrens 50 to 100 miles back from the coast in Georgia, 

 and the vegetation is also very similar. Shallow ponds, with Fi- 

 nns Elliottii, Nyssa biflora and Ilex myrfifolia, are frequent, and 

 Taxodinui iuibricarinni was seen a little west of Biloxi. In most 

 places the pine-barrens are not yet even turpentined (which is 

 rather unusual at the present day), though this railroad has 

 been in operation about 35 years, it is said. 



Soon after entering Jackson County (just across a narrow bay 

 from Biloxi) the " pine meadows " which have been described 

 by Hilgard f and others % began to appear, and they continued 

 most of the way to the Alabama line. In these park-like " mead- 

 ows " (which by the way have no exact counterpart in Georgia) 

 there are almost no trees except Finns palnstris and F. Elliottii, and 

 these are of low growth, only thirty or forty feet tall. The 

 only evergreen shrubs noticed were Ilex glabra and Serenoa. 

 The surface of the country is very flat, with few streams, and the 

 superficial sand seems to be thinner than it is a little farther west, 

 or perhaps entirely absent. Many of the trees, doubtless the 

 larger ones, have been cut out, but the region is very sparsely 

 settled, and sometimes no houses, roads or fields v/ere visible for 

 several miles. At present these pine meadows do not seem to 

 be utilized for anything but sheep ranges. 



Why the pines are so stunted in such places I was not able to 



* Trans, and Proc. Bot. Soc. Pa. i : 426-434. 1904. 



t Geol. and Agric. Miss. 370, 371. i860. 



\ E. A. Smith, Geol. of the Coastal Plain of Ala. loi. 1894. 



