68 PLANT LIFE OF ALABAMA. 
wnoent, PB. maculata, and P. divaricata, the dazzling orange of the but- 
terfly weed (Ase/epius tuberosi), the pink of Monarda jistulosaand M. rus- 
velliana, the blue of Scutellaria versicolor and Phacelia bipinnata, and 
the golden flowers of Senecio balsamitae, S. earler, and Coreopsis 
wuriculata, while later in the season Solidago amplexicaulis, 8. lati- 
folia, S. curtisii, and S.caesia arillaris enliven these low hills. 
The perfectly level tracts of a cold, gray, impervious soil, a perfect 
mire during the season of rain and a hard crusty mass torn by many 
fissures while baking in the summer’s sun, form a peculiar feature in 
the topography and flora of the Coosa Valley. These flats extend for 
many miles in the main valley where the impervious Cambrian slates 
form its floor. They are for the greater part covered with a low 
forest of dwarfed trees, black jack, Texan oak, post oak scarcely over 
20 feet high, with equally stunted loblolly—more rarely short-leaf and 
scrub pines—scattered among them. These dwarfed woods are ren- 
dered truly impenetrable by the multitude of shrubby hawthorns 
(Crataegus crus-gall’, C. spathulata, C. aptifolia), Southern crab apple, 
persimmon, and black gum (Vyssa multiflora), entangled with the 
tough vines of bamboo briers (Smdlaw bona-nox, S. laurifolia) and 
forming a perfect maze of green. In the bare openings the following 
form the very open vegetation upon the ashy gray flats: 
Rosa hiwnilis. Cracca virginiana. 
Kneiffia suffruticosa. Coreopsis crassifolia. 
Asclepias variegata. Juncus acuminotus debilis. 
Apocynum cannabinum. 
The last of these is the most frequent. osa humilis is here reduced 
to a height of 6 to 10 inches. 
No grasses or cyperaceous plants inhabiting a damp soil are met 
with, a fact readily accounted for when the sharp extremes of wet and 
dry to which these flats are subjected and the total absence of decayed 
vegetable matter are considered. 
Cultural plant formutions.—About 25 per cent of the area of this 
subdivision is farm land more or less subjected to the plow; the rest is 
under tree covering. High forests in their original condition prevail 
on the steep mountains, which are not profitable for tillage, and in 
valleys remote from the highways of traffic. In the metamorphic area 
the lower hills and valleys with a warm loamy soil, resulting from the 
decomposition of the more basic schists and softer shales and augitic 
or feldspathic gneiss, worn down far beyond their original level, are 
of high and lasting fertility and almost entirely under cultivation, 
which is also to be said of the fertile lands of thé Coosa Valley. Over 
one-half of the tilled lands are devoted to cotton, broad fields of which 
alternate with smaller ones of Indian corn (Zea mays), of small grains 
(mostly oats, wheat, and rye), and forage crops (clover and meadow 
grasses), with patches of the Chinese sugar cane or sorghum (Sorghum 
