390 



THE VEGETATION OF THE ILLINOIS LOWLANDS. 



often seen. It is not improbable that the germs, or young plants 

 of these tribes are washed away and destroyed by the often recur- 

 ring freshets, especially by the spring floods, but they are absent 

 not only from the lowland forests, but as well from those on the 

 uplands where no freshet ever comes. Here the drouth of summer 

 may destroy them as too much moisture does in the lowlands. If 

 we study the trees alone we find that the entire state affords not 

 far from a hundred distinct species and varieties, besides about one- 

 fourth as many shrubs. It would be out of the question to men- 

 tion more than a few of the more important species here. Of the 

 maples, the sugar and the silver, or white, are abundant, and of 

 large size, sometimes reaching a height of a hundred and fifty 

 feet and a diameter of eight or ten feet. 



The red maple so common in New England very rarely occurs 

 wild in Illinois, so far as I can ascertain. The oaks are repre- 

 sented by at least fifteen species and varieties, and in many places 

 form the greater part of the forests and in new settlements they 

 furnish most of the building material in place of the lacking pine 

 and spruce. Of this tribe the most abundant and widely distrib- 

 uted are the white, red, and black oaks. The bur, swamp and 

 post oaks, are common in some localities, as are the pin oak, 

 chestnut oak and laurel oak, though they do not seem to be as 

 universally common over the state as the three species first named. 

 The scarlet oak and Spanish oak are probably the least common, 

 except Lea's oak which occurs in Fulton county and perhaps else- 

 where. Both species of Nyssa found in the Northern States are 

 common in Southern Illinois but not elsewhere. The pawpaw, 

 persimmon and pecan are found more or less abundantly over the 

 southern two-thirds of the state, the first species occurring as a 

 second growth sometimes in considerable quantity. There are sev- 

 eral species of trees which are found either alone or in small groups 

 or along the edges of groves, but they very rarely form groves 

 by themselves. Those of this class which are most commonly 

 found upon moist ground are, the honey locust, beautiful in form 

 and foliage, at a distance one of the most attractive of trees, but 

 hideous often for its huge clusters of thorns; the box-elder, or 

 ash-leaved maple, with drooping branches that in large, solitary 

 trees sometimes almost touch the ground, and in one or two such 

 specimens I have seen almost perfectly regular domes, the base of 



