Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 46, August, 1861

The Pine-Barrens of the Southern States are celebrated as healthful retreats for the inhabitants of seaport towns, whither they resort in summer for security from the prevailing fevers. They are of a mixed character, consisting of the Northern Pitch-Pine, the Broom-Pine, and the Cypress, intermixed with Red Maples, Sweet Gums, and other deciduous trees. The Pines, however, are the dominant growth: but here they do not grow so compactly as in colder regions, standing widely apart, with a frequent intervening growth of Willows and shrubbery. The sparseness of these woods may be in part attributed to the practice of tapping the trees for their turpentine, which has caused them for a century past to be gradually thinned by consequent decay. Their tall, gaunt forms and almost branchless trunks show that they obtained their principal growth in a dense wood.

The first time I entered one of these Pine-Barrens was some years since, in the month of June, when vegetation was in its prime, before the summer droughts had seared the green herbage, and when the flowering trees and shrubs were in all their glory. During my botanical rambles in the wood, I was struck with the multitude of beautiful flowers in its shady retreats,—seeming the more numerous to me, as I had previously confined my researches to Northern woods. The Phlox grew here in all its native grace and delicacy, where it had never known the fostering hand of Art. Crimson Rhexias, called by the inhabitants Deer-Weed, were distributed among the grassy knolls, like clusters of Picotees. Variegated Passion-Flowers were conspicuous on the bare white sand that checkered the ground, displaying their emblematic forms on their low repent vines, and reminding the wanderer in these almost trackless solitudes of that Faith which was founded on humility and crowned with martyrdom. Here, too, the Spiderwort of our gardens, in a meeker form of beauty and with a paler radiance, luxuriated under the protection of the wood. Already I observed the predominance of luxuriant vines, indicating our nearness to the tropic, wreathed gayly over the tall and branchless trunks of the trees: some, like the Bignonia, in a full blaze of crimson; others, like the Climbing Fern, draping the trees in continual verdure.

These Pines constitute a great part of the timber of the flat country between the mountains and the coast, and render a journey through that region singularly monotonous and gloomy. In the low grounds, a considerable proportion of the wood consists of the Southern Cypress, a graceful and magnificent tree, whose appearance would be very lively and cheerful, were it not for the abundance of long trailing "moss" ( usnea ) that hangs, like funereal drapery, from its branches, and darkens the whole forest. This parasitic appendant wreathes the woods sometimes almost in darkness, especially in those immense tracts on the borders of the Mexican Gulf that consist entirely of Cypress. There it has been poetically styled the "Garlands of Death," as significant of the fevers that prevail wherever it is abundant.

It is remarkable that the two extremes of climate are distinguished by the predominance of evergreens in their vegetation. Thus, the acicular-leaved trees, consisting of Pines and their congeners, mark the cold-temperate and sub-arctic zones, in north latitude,—while Myrtles, Magnolias, and other broad-leaved evergreens, mark the equatorial and tropical regions. The deciduous trees belong properly to the temperate zones, and constitute, indeed, the most interesting of all arborescent vegetation.

With regard to the age of forests, it may be affirmed that there are some undoubtedly in existence which are coeval with the earliest history of nations; but no individual trees are of such antiquity. Like nations, the assemblage may be perpetual, while the members that compose it are constantly perishing, and leaving their places to be supplied by others of more recent origin. Probably the earth does not contain forests in which any tree exceeds a thousand years of age, though the oldest forest extant may be as ancient as the Chinese Empire; for the oldest trees are not found in dense assemblages, but are probably such as have grown singly in isolated situations. As soon as a tree in a forest begins to feel the infirmities of age, its place is usurped by some young and more vigorous neighbor, and it is gradually deprived of subsistence in this unequal contest. The tempests and tornadoes, it may be added, which occasionally sweep over a country, commonly make the oldest and tallest trees their victims; for events seem to follow the same course in a forest as in human society. The most vigorous growers at any period continue to flourish a certain length of time at the expense of others; but when they have risen above the common level, they become marks for destruction,—they fall before certain inimical forces that do not reach their more humble companions.

It was the opinion of Humboldt, that, if any tract of wooded country deserves to be considered a part of the great "primeval forest", it is "that boundless district which, in the torrid zone of South America, connects the river-basins of the Amazon and the Orinoco." This tract, unequalled in extent by any other forest in the world, occupies an area of more than a thousand miles square. In this vast chaos of teeming vegetation, trees of the largest dimensions are connected by an undergrowth of vines and shrubbery which is almost impenetrable. Immense rivers and their tributaries intersect the forest in all directions, and constitute the only avenues of commercial intercourse. This impervious thicket is like a huge wall, separating near neighbors, rendering them, as it were, inhabitants of distant regions, and obliging them to make long and circuitous river journeys before they can hold communication.

Here the leaves of the trees are always green, and flowers appear in constant succession; but the surface of the ground is without herbage, for the darkness of the wood is fatal to all humble vegetation. The small plants are mostly parasites, thousands inserting their roots into the bark of trees and garlanding them with beauty. Those that take root in the ground show but few leaves or flowers, until they have clambered upwards, through the underwood, into the light of heaven. Almost the only relief afforded the sight, in this vast solitude, comes from the rivers and other collections of water, over whose expanse the eye revels with the delight we feel on emerging from the gloom of a cavern. Every object seems to be struggling to get outside of this chaotic growth, where it can obtain the genial influence of the sun: for near the surface of the ground are perpetual shade and hideous entanglement.

In this primeval forest we must not expect to realize any of our poetical ideas of the primitive residence of the first human family. Here are no Arcadian scenes of peace and rural felicity. On all sides we behold an undying competition for light and life, among both plants and animals. We are reminded here of life in a crowded city, where the excessive abundance of supplies for human wants imported from the surrounding country causes a still greater superfluity of population, and produces a struggle for a livelihood more severe than in a rural district of gravel and boulders. The oases of this great wilderness are those places in which there is an absence of the general fertility: barrenness in such circumstances is a relief,—because it allows both freedom and repose.

This wood is the nursery of all descriptions of monsters, living chiefly in trees. On their branches and in their tangled recesses, adorned with all sorts of foliage and flowers, creatures the most terrible and the most loathsome are seen crowding and crouching in close proximity to the most beautiful forms of living things. They fill the air with their discordant utterances, and allow no permanent silence or tranquillity. Hours of periodical stillness and repose, occurring mostly at noonday, and affecting one with a sensation of awful grandeur, by contrast with the preceding disturbances, are followed, especially in the night, by a tumultuous roar from the legions of contending animals.