4 FOREST-TREES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
W. Chapman, of Apalachicola, during a two months’ cruise by schooner 
on the west coast, among the various keys and inlets, and far into the in- 
terior by the Caloosahatchee River. Dy. Chapman is an old resident of 
Florida, author of the “Flora of the Southern States,” and better 
acquainted with the vegetation of that region than any other person. 
A portion of the trees of Texas were obtained by Dr. S. B. Buckley, 
of Austin, whose labors in developing the botany of that section are 
well known; and a portion were collected by Dr. F. G. Lindheimer, a 
veteran botanist, whose collections of Texas plants, made many years 
ago, enrich the principal herbaria of the country. 
In Utah, Mr. L. F. Ward, botanist of the survey of the Colorado ~ 
River by Messrs. Powell and Thompson, made the collection of the trees 
ss that region. 
The trees of the high sierras of California and Nevada were procured 
by Mr. J. G. Lemmon, of Sierra County, California. The magnificent 
conifers of that region are represented by large wedge-shaped sections 
of trees from 4 to 7 feet in diameter, the preparation of which cost a 
great amount of toil and expense. The immense trees had to be 
felled, and the desired sections removed by sawing and splitting with 
wedges until the portions were reduced to proper size. 
The trees of the Pacific slope in California were collected by Mr. G. 
_R. Vasey, with valuable aid and assistance from Dr. A. Kellogg, of San 
Francisco, Dr. J. G. Cooper, and others. 
~ Dr. Edward Palmer made the collection for the southern portion of 
California, Arizona, and Southern Utah. 
Mr. A. J. Dufur, Centennial Commissioner for Oregon, collected the 
peculiar trees of that State. 
After the woods were received at Washington, they were taken to a 
mill and reduced to the uniform length of two feet ; then each section 
was divided by sawing longitudinally into two pieces, which were planed 
on the sawed surface, one arranged to show the outer or bark surface 
and the other to show the grain of the wood, its color, density, &c. 
The corresponding botanical specimens for each species are displayed 
in frames arranged in the immediate vicinity of the trees to which they 
belong. By this means, an intelligent view of the appearance and prop- 
erties of every species of the trees of the countrymay be obtained. 
Great difficulty was experienced in deciding upon the limitations of 
height and size which should characterize a tree. It is well known that 
certain plants which are only shrubs in some places become large trees 
in other places; sometimes the difference depending on climate and some- 
times on other circumstances. Thus, Jagnolia glauca, or White Bay, 
grows and matures its flowers and fruit in some portions of Massachu- 
setts, where it attains only the size of a large shrub. It, however, 
steadily increases in size in situations farther south, until in Georgia 
and Florida it attains the size of a large tree. In some places, the same 
plant appears as a shrub or a tree, under different circumstances, in — 
closely contiguous localities. Dr. Chapman, who made the collection of | 
the trees of South Florida, says: ‘I was much disappointed in the size 
of most of the forest growth in that region. A peculiarity of these 
tropical trees is, that for miles they occur to you as mere shrubs, when 
at some other locality you find them lofty trees.” As a general rule, I 
have not admitted into the collection any tree which does not, under 
favorable circumstances, attain a height of 20 feet and a diameter of 4 
inches. Yet,in a few cases, in order the more fully to illustrate a family, 
a tree has been admitted which would fall below that standard. The 
