Tennessee Flora. 25- 



the Mississippi Eiver and terminates there in another bluff, which 

 rises about 300 feet over the floods of -the Mississippi. The eastern, 

 portion of this area is composed of cretaceous deposits, and the- 

 western portion is composed of tertiary and post-tertiarj' deposits,, 

 either sands or soft cretaceous shale. Solid, often ferruginous,, 

 sandstones appear at the surface, scattered in incoherent masses. 



We behold no longer limpid' streams, rippling over rocky bot- 

 toms, sided by clifEs and bluffs. Instead of them, we find lagoons 

 and swampy borders, stretching along muddy-looking waters of 

 sluggish streams. 



From distance already, before crossing the Tennessee River, we 

 are in sight of towering cypresses. While a thousand miles east 

 from here they yet occupy the shore line of the Atlantic, here the 

 shore line has receded to the Gulf and left the- cypress behind. Their 

 dimensions are truly enormous. The far-spreading roots emerge 

 like sharp-backed ridges from the brownish lagoon, gradually creep- 

 ing up and girding with buttresslike projections the many-angled 

 column. A perpendicular shaft ascends to a height of from 120 to 

 150 feet and then spreads in a flat or hemispherical crown. Such I 

 have seen, in 1864-70, near Johnsonville. Cypress swamps are 

 along both big rivers, and many other extensive swamps and 

 swampy lands are along every water course — ^the most, perhaps, 

 along Big Sandy. It may, therefore, be expected that a great many 

 more aquatic species and such as inhabit marshy lands exist in this 

 region than in either East or Middle Tennessee. My own ex^^eri- 

 enee is, however, limited and restricted to one point on the Missis- 

 sippi Eiver — ^the regions of Brownsville, Humboldt, McKenzie, 

 Hollow Rock, and Johnsonyille, in which places I have made inter- 

 esting collections. 



In the cypress swamps and boggy lowlands we And the planer 

 tree, or water elm {Planera aquatica\; the cypress (Taxodium dis- 

 ticlium), the stateliest of our timber trees; the swamp locust {Gle- 

 ditschia monospermy) ; the tupelo gums {Nyssa sylvatica and 

 Nyssa aquatica) ; the mountain sweet pepper bush (Clethra acumi- 

 nata), so frequent in the mountains of East Tennessee, but rare 

 in Middle and West Tennessee; the swamp white oak {Quercvs 

 Mcolor), the black alder (Ilex verticillata) , the swamp holly {Ilex 

 decidua), intertwined with .the climbing bittersweet (Ceiastrus 

 scandens), and the supple-jack {Berchemia volubilis). Two buck- 

 thorns (Bhamnus Caroliniana and Rhamnus la/nc&olata) are also 



