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  1. The vegetation of Texas : being the first of a series of brochures purposed to present the scientific scene with accuracy and interest
    1. The Vegetation of Texas

    2. The Vegetation of Texas

    3. Contents

    4. Illustrations

    5. Foreword

    6. Introduction

    7. Texas Vegetation

    8. Vegetatoinal Regions

    9. Region 1: Long-Leaf Pine

    10. Region 2: The Coastal Prairie

    11. Region 3: The Fayette Prairie

    12. Region 4: Mesquite-Chaparral

    13. Region 5: Coastal Sand Dunes

    14. Region 6: Oak-Hickory-Mesquite of the Central Texas Crystallines

    15. Region 7: The Edwards Plateau: Oak-Cedar

    16. Region 8: The Mountains

    17. Region 9: Live Oak-Mesquite Savanna

    18. Region 10: Sotol-Lechuguilla

    19. Region 11: The Sandy South Plains

    20. Region 12: THe High Plains

    21. Region 13: The Mesquite-Grassland

    22. Region 14: The Western Cross Timbers

    23. Region 15: The Eastern Cross Timbers

    24. Region 16: Oak-Hickory

    25. Region 17: The Pine-Oak Forest

    26. Region 18: The Blackland Prairie

    27. A Distribution List of the Principal Ferns and Seed Plants Occurring Native in Texas

    28. Ferns

    29. Seed Plants

    30. The editors asked Doctor Tharp to define ECOLOGY for them in a few words. This is his answer:

  2. Illustrations
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    2. Untitled

    3. Untitled

    4. Untitled

    5. Untitled

    6. Long-leaf pine tapped for turpentine, which is extracted over a period of two or three years before the timber is cut. Region 1.

    7. Seedling long-leaf on cut-over forest. Note the rejected relict trees which have furnished the seed. Region 1.

    8. Salt grass on the coastal prairie. Low shrubs of huisache appear in front and rear of the figure. Region 2.

    9. Huajillo, prickly pear, blackbrush, and yucca in a typical chaparral mixture. Region 4.

    10. Looking across Green Gulch to Lost Mine Peak in the background, Chisos Mountains. The steep slope below the cliffs is covered with oak; the bunch growth in the foreground valley floor is slender bear grass and sotol. Region 8.

    11. Taken in Palo Pinto County, this mesquite-prickly pear grouping might be substantially duplicated in parts of regions 4, 6, 7, 9, 13, and 18.

    12. Mountain live oak; Davis Mountains. Region 8.

    13. Western yellow pine; Davis Mountains. Region 8.

    14. White sage and mesquite in deep sand near Monahans. Region 11.

    15. Bald cypress in Caddo Lake. Region 17.

    16. A small specimen of Ocotillo, a striking plant of Region 10.

    17. Slender bear grass and Yucca growing on an overgrazed, grama-grass valley; Brewster County. Region 10.

    18. A crust of salt in a broad zone around a salt lake near Brownfield. Note the vegetation at the margin. The briny liquid at the center of the lake was out of range to the right and does not show. Region 11.

    19. A pygmy forest of Havard's oak on sandy land, Hockley County. Region 11

    20. The oak-hickory forest just west of Texarkana. Region 16.

    21. Post oak in open stand near Refugio. Note the long festoons of Spanish moss. Region 16.

    22. Where the Western cross timbers meet the prairie in Parker County Regions 14 and 18.

    23. Untitled

36

was included. They are quite distinct species, however, and hence texensis is not the state flower.

Drummond's Phlox, rated the most loved of all garden annuals and cultivated in every civilized country on earth, is native of the same region and not known to be native elsewhere, at least not with the beautiful shade of deep red which charactrized the plant upon which the original description and the colored illustration accompanying it were based some hundred years ago. Seeds sent to England by Drummond were planted, the species figured and described, and the plant widely introduced into gardens by the Botanical Garden at Edinburgh. It thrived in cultivation, grew in favor, produced a prodigious number of varieties, and has, within the short space of a century, attained first place among cultivated garden annuals: Its behavior, both wild and under culture, has led many to believe that hybridity was involved in the original col' lection of seeds and that the immense number (150 or more) of varieties has been produced by the segregation of sets of heritable unit characters. (See frontispiece.)

Also south of the Brazos, the region is cleft by the Fayette Prairie. Again, marl of limestone origin and with a very fine texture, highly colloidal 10 in nature, is correlated with the vegetational cover of the cleavage grassland (Region 3). The lower fork of Region 16, char acterized by diminishing height and increasingly open stand of the postoaks, reaches the vicinity of Sinton in San Patricia County. Its line of contact with the Pine-Oak Forest constituting Region 17 will be discussed in connection with that region.

In the general, the vegetation and agricultural adaptations of the region are very similar to those of the preceding two. Rainfall con tinues to increase eastward and is reflected in a taller and denser stand of timber; but, otherwise, the -differences are too slight to warrant any attempt at description within our limited space.

18 Colloidal. This term means that the individual particles are so fine as to cause a wet mass rubbed between the fingers to appear smooth-textured and gelatinous. This fineness of texture prevents the particles from existing as separate granules (as in sands); it causes them when dry rather to adhere tightly together in aggregate clumps ranging in size from flocculate crumbs to hard clods.

The Vegetation of Texas