Introduction 



flowering as recorded at Chapel Hill. The few tech- 

 nical terms that we have found it necessary to use 

 will be found explained in the Glossary and Index. 



The flora of North Carolina is very rich, and in no 

 way is it richer than in the beauty and variety of its 

 trees. As will be seen from the following pages, 

 there are native in this state, according to our con- 

 servative treatment of the species, one hundred and 

 sixty-six kinds of plants that normally grow to tree 

 size, and this is excluding a number of introduced 

 trees that have escaped to a slight extent and are 

 mentioned in the foot notes. To this number it would 

 be easy to add at least a dozen more hawthorns by a 

 less reserved treatment of that problematic group, 

 and another dozen plants by including certain shrubs 

 that occasionally reach the size of small trees. 



In the number of its trees our state is superior to 

 any of the other States of the Union, with the excep- 

 tion of Florida and Texas. Florida stands first with 

 about 328 native trees, including 38 species of 

 Crataegus (Small, Florida Trees, 1913) ; Texas is 

 next with 198 native species, including only nine spe- 

 cies of Crataegus (Lewis, The Trees of Texas, 

 1915), but this includes nine species that also grow 

 in North Carolina and have been excluded by us as 

 shrubs. Next after North Carolina comes Georgia 

 with 134 trees (only six species of Crataegus count- 

 ed) as estimated by Harper and the probable oc- 

 currence of about 20 more is suggested (Southern 



