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7. The Hemlock Forest 



The forest of Canadian hemlock spruce along the Bronx 

 River, within the portion of Bronx Park set apart for the 

 New York Botanical Garden, is one of the most noteworthy 

 natural features of the Borough of the Bronx, and has been 

 characterized by a distinguished citizen as " the most precious 

 natural possession of the city of New York." 



This forest exists in the northern part of Bronx Park on 

 the banks of the river and their contiguous hills; its greater 

 area is on the western side of the stream, but it occupies a 

 considerable space on the eastern side above the Lorillard 

 mansion and below the boulder bridge. The area west of 

 the river extends from just above this bridge down stream to 

 a point nearly opposite the old Lorillard snuff mill, and is 

 the part commonly designated " Hemlock Grove." Its total 

 length along the river is approximately 3,000 feet; its great- 

 est width, 900 feet, is at a point on the river about 700 feet 

 above the water fall at the Lorillard mansion. The total 

 area occupied by the trees on both sides of the river is be- 

 tween thirty-five and forty acres. 



While this area is mostly covered by the hemlock spruces, 

 and although they form its predominant vegetation, other 

 trees are by no means lacking; beech, chestnut, sweet birch, 

 red maple, hickory, oaks, dogwood, tulip-tree and other 

 trees occur, and their foliage protects the hemlocks from the 

 sun in summer to a very considerable extent; there are no 

 coniferous trees other than the hemlock, however, within 

 the forest proper. The shade is too dense for the existence 

 of much low vegetation, and this is also unable to grow at all 

 vigorously in the soil formed largely of the decaying resinous 

 hemlock leaves; it is only in open places left by the occasional 

 uprooting of a tree or trees by gales that we see any con- 

 siderable number of shrubs or herbaceous plants, their seeds 

 brought into the forest by wind or by birds. In fact, the 

 floor of the forest is characteristically devoid of vegetation, 

 a feature shown by other forests of hemlock situated further 

 north. The contrast in passing from the hemlock woods to 



