CHECK LIST OF FOREST TREES 6 



and less abundant speoies. The rare and little-known Florida Yew 

 (Taxus lloridcna) is an example. A professional maker of archers' 

 high-grade bows, believing the wood of this yew to be of superior 

 quality for his purposes, is said to be transferring his operations 

 from California to Florida in order to exploit the very limited supply 

 of this yew. available now only in a single county. Likewise, the 

 rapidly increasing use for shuttles of the so-called Flowering Dog- 

 wood (Cornus florida), a small and hitherto unimportant tree, bids 

 fair soon to exhaust the commercial supply of this wood. Another 

 example of the near exhaustion of a species of limited range and 

 abundance is the Cascara (Rhamnus pursliiana) of northwestern 

 range. Occurring mostly as single scattered individuals or in small 

 groups, the total supply of trees that can yield bark (the only part 

 of the tree used) is relatively small compared with the consumption. 

 Every tree exploited for its bark is killed. 



The present intensive exploitation of these smaller and tempo- 

 rarily useful species, with no means applied for maintaining a sus- 

 tained yield, may so exhaust the species that the uses now made 

 of them will cease unless shifted to still other, untried, species. 



COMMON NAMES OF TREES 



In order that the fullest possible consideration might be given to 

 the important matter of selecting common names for the different 

 trees enumerated in this new Check List of the Forest Trees of the 

 United States, the Forester appointed a committee on common 

 names. Membership of the committee was made up of Ward Shepard, 

 Herbert A. Smith, and the writer, all members of the Forest Service. 

 Latterly, upon the resignation of Doctor Smith from the committee, 

 M. C. Merrill was chosen to fill the vacancy. In the prosecution of 

 its work the committee received much helpful advice and many 

 suggestions not only from other members of the Forest Service but 

 also from other professional foresters throughout the United States. 



It has long been the endeavor of the Forest Service to standardize 

 the common names of trees, so that not only the trees as they are 

 met with in forests and fields shall be known by generally accepted 

 names, but that the commercial products of these trees — lumber, 

 etc. — shall also be known by those names. The importance in trade 

 relations of such standardization of common names can not be over- 

 estimated. Failure to use standard common names for important 

 timber trees and their woods has led to troublesome and expensive 

 litigation. 



The standardization of the common names of trees has an even 

 broader significance from the educational point of view. The one 

 great object of ail books on our trees is to acquaint the public with 

 how many different trees we have and by what names they are 

 known. Extending this common knowledge will be accomplished 

 much more speedily if the present confusion of common names of 

 trees can be ended by general agreement on standard names for the 

 different species. 



Many technical writers have a tendency largely to ignore com- 

 mon names, or, in some cases, to list the more common ones but not 

 to single out any one name as desirable, preferring, as is perhaps 

 natural, to rely upon technical names for distinguishing different 

 trees. However, the use of standardized common names for trees is 



