590 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [DECEMBER 
largest one measuring 2 m. in girth. The offspring of these was 
limited to one solitary seedling, a disproportion the significance of 
which will be apparent later, when compared with the progeny of 
the ‘“‘patriarch”’ on the other side of the gorge. The soil in both 
situations is the same, a hard, dry, rocky clay, with a characteristic 
Fic. 2.—In foreground, small portion of old clearing as it appeared after fire, 
with ‘‘patriarch” on border between it and copsewood; tall Pinus echinata diml 
outlined at extreme left stands near brow of opposite slope of ravine; beyond is knoll 
on farther side of which “control” group is situated. 
ground cover of Pteris aquilina, Tephrosia virginica, and a number 
of coarse grasses that have a strikingly familiar aspect to one 
acquainted with the vegetation of the great pine region of the South 
Atlantic coastal plain. The typical wire grass (Aristida stricta) of 
