AVi- (;RAY AND BOOKEB ON THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN FLORA. fiO 



- throughout, each region has some peculiar features— some trees by which the 

 country ma; at oner !>.• distinguished. 



ginning by a oompariaon of our Pacific with oui Atlantic forest, I Deed not take 



the time {o enumerate tin- trees of the latter, as we all may be supposed t<> know them, 

 and many of the genera will have to be mentioned in draw ingthe contrast to which I 

 ■■ your attention. In this you will he impressed most of all, I think, with the 

 fact that tlu- greater part of our familial trees are •■ conspicuous by their absence '* from 

 the Paciti< forest. 



For example, it has no Magnolias, no Tulip-tree, no Papaw, no Linden 01 Basswood, 

 and is v.rv pom- in Maples: no Locust-trees — neither Flowering Locnat not- Honej 

 -; — nor any leguminous tree : no cherry large enough tor a timber-tree, like our 

 wild Black Cherry : no Gum-trees Nyssa DorLiquidambar) t nor Sorrel-tree, nor Kalmia; 

 no Persimmon or Bumelia : not a Holly : only one Ash that may be called a timher-t ree : 

 no Catalpa or Sassafras; not a single Elm nor Hackberry; not a Mulberry , nor Planer- 

 tree, nor Madura : not a Hickory, nor a Beech, nora true Chestnut, nor a Hornbeam : 

 one Birch-tree, ami that only far north, where the differences are Less striking. 

 But as to coniferous trees, the only missing type is our Bald Cypress, the so-called 

 Cypress of our southern swamps, and that deficiency is made up by other things. But 

 as to ordinary trees, if you ask what takes the place iu Oregon and California of all these 

 missing kind-, which are familiar on our side of the continent, I must answer, noth- 

 : nearly nothing. There is the MadroOa (Arbutus) instead of our Kalmia (both 

 trees in some places); and there is the California laurel instead of our southern Red 

 Bay tree. Nor in any of the genera common to the two does the Pacific forest equal the 

 Atlantic in species. It has not half as many Maples nor Ashes nor Poplars nor Walnuts 

 nor Birches, and those it has are of smaller size and inferior quality ; it has not half as 

 many Oaks ; and these and the Ashes are of so inferior economical value that (as we are 

 told ' a passable wagon-wheel cannot be made of California wood, nor a really good 

 one in Oregon. 



This poverty of the western forest in Bpecies and types may be exhibited graphic- 

 ally, in a way which cannot fail to strike the eye more impressively than when we 

 say that, whereas the Atlantic forest is composed of 66 genera and 155 species, the 

 Pacific forest has only 31 genera and 78 species. * In the appended diagrams the short 

 side of the rectangle is proportional to the number of gemra. the long side to the num- 

 ber of spe 

 Now the geographical areas of the two forests are not very different. From the 

 r Mexico to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence about twenty degrees of latitude inter- 

 vene. From the southern end of California to the peninsula of Alaska there are I wenty- 

 eighr . und the forest on the coasf runs some degrees north of this j the length 



therefore make up for the comparative narrowness of the Pacific forest i 

 How can so meagre a forest make -«. imposing a show .' Surely not by the _ 

 number and M/e of its individuals, so far as deciduous or more coi rectly non-conifer- 

 • iic.i neii : tor on the whole they are inferior to their eastern brethren 

 if not in number of individual-. Tie- reason i- that a larger proportion of the 

 are coniferous trees; ami these being ■' the 



•t aspiring port and eminently gregarious habit, usually dominate where 

 While the East has almost three time- a- many genera and tour times as 

 non-coniferous trees ;•- the West, it ha- slightly fewer _ 

 it one-halt fewer -j" tiferous trees than the West : that i-. the Atlantic 



ion- forest sented by 11 genera and 25 species ; the Pacii ' 12 g 



* We tak.- in only timber trees, oi sou b as attain in the moe >le Locality 



which gives them a clear title to the si boreons rank. The subtropical southern 



• Kcluded. 

 gion, which may touch the evanescent southern borders of the ( 

 In counting the coniferous genera, Pinna, I Mm-., and 



admitted to thi- rank, but ' genua. 



