x 
Forest Element of the Atlantic plains. 917 
australis), P. taeda, Quercus geminata, Q.virens (= O. virginiana) with Sabal 
glabra, Serenoa serrulata, Opuntia pes-corvi, Baldwinia multiflora, Breweria 
sp., which may be looked upon as a recent derivation from the mainland, 
where the species mentioned form part of the pine barren flora. The absence 
of epiphytic mainland plants Polypodium polypodioides (= P. incanum) and 
Tillandsia usneoides is noteworthy. 
Forest Element of the Plains. The Atlantic and Gulf coast plains were 
covered by a forest of the same general character from Virginia through the 
Carolinas, Georgia, northern Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and 
Arkansas to eastern Texas, where near the Brazos River, it is checked by the 
drier climate of the southwest. It is instructive to study it in Texas, where 
it meets three other floral elements, viz., the Mexican flora, the Rocky Mountain 
flora and the Great Plain flora. Here the vanguard of the coastal plain forest 
is broken into straggling detachments, of which only the hardier push onward 
along the prairie streamways or up the deeper canyons of the hills. "It is a 
striking phenomenon, this breaking up and gradual dwindling away of so vast 
and vigorous a forest”). Not only in Texas, but far to the north, through 
the Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, the same thing may 
be seen. Like a vast wave that has rolled in upon a level beach, the Atlantic 
forest breaks upon the dry plains — halting, creeping forward, thinning out, and 
finally disappearing, except where along a river course, it pushes far inland”. 
The swamps and bayou forest form one of the elements of this coast forest 
that reaches Texas and reaches northward into Arkansas, as far, as south- 
eastern Missouri, Tarodium distichum, Nyssa sylvatica, Q. nigra (= Quercus 
aquatica, Carya amara (= Hicoria minima), Liquidambar styraciflua, Fraxinus 
platycarpa, Magnolia glauca and Nyssa uniflora are the more important trees 
of this type of forest. The relative representation of species varies greatly in 
different areas. In one place Nyssa uniflora (see Fig. 5, p. 213) is dominant, 
in another Taxodium distichum, in another Carya amara. The hardwood forests 
of the alluvial bottoms in Texas consists of nearly all the well known valuable 
trees of the Atlantic States. The oaks (Oxercus) stand first in quantity and 
variety: Ouercus Michauxü, O. macrocarpa, O. lyrata, O. alba, O. rubra, 
O. phellos and O.nigra (aquatica) associated with Fraxinus americana, F. viridis, 
Carya (Hicoria) aquatica, Carya olivacformis (= Hicoria pecan), Carya tomen- 
tosa (= Hicoria ovata), Nyssa sylvatica, Platanus occidentalis, Tilia americana, 
Acer dasycarpum (= A. saccharinum), Ostrya virginiana, Carpinus caroliniana 
and Maclura aurantiaca (= Toxylon pomiferunm) and Juglans nigra. On the 
rich loose bottom soil, the timber grows very large and the intermixture of 
species is ordinarily very complete. 
At the Gulf, the coast plain in Texas is a grass covered/| d/prairie. Twen 
miles inland tongues of forests are found projecting down to the Gulf along 
ı) Brav, WırLıam L.: Forest a of Texas Bureau of Forestry U. S, Department of 
Agriculture, No. 47: 1904 
