ALTAMAHA GRIT REGION OF GEORGIA 37 



parentheses and epiphytes in brackets. The following table 

 will illustrate the system: 



An evergreen tree. 



A deciduous tree. 



An evergreen shrub. 



A deciduous shrub. 



An evergreen woody vine- 



A deciduous woody vine. 



(An evergreen shrubby parasite.) 



An evergreen herb. 



[Same, epiphytic] 



A perennial herb, not evergreen %. 



An annual herb ©. 



A biennial herb ©. 



A perennial herbaceous vine %. 



(A parasitic annual herbaceous vine,) ®. 



A bryophyte, on the ground. 



[Same, epiphytic] 



(a perennial parasitic fungus.) 



A fleshy saprophytic fungus. 



This morphological classification is significant in more ways 

 than one. It is obvious that the relation of trees, with their 

 deeply penetrating roots, to the soil is different from that of herbs , 

 especially in the coastal plain where soil and subsoil are often 

 quite unlike, as was ably pointed out by Dr. Hilgard many years 

 ago. 1 The greater size of trees as compared with other plants, 

 and of shrubs as compared with herbs, also subjects them to a 

 greater variety of conditions above ground, and by reason of 

 their greater age (a century or more in the case of some trees), 

 they are subjected to greater variations of climate. For the 

 same reason the process of evolution is probably much slower 

 in trees than in annual species, so there may have been a time 

 when the herbaceous flora of the pine-barrens was quite different 

 from what it is now while the arborescent flora was about the 

 same. 



It is also obvious that evergreens must stand in a different 



1 Geology and Agriculture of Mississippi, pp. 202-204. i860. 



