St. Clair County, Illinois - Chapter 5: Flora, 1881

Chapter 5: Flora

,N this article it is our purpose only to give a list of the native trees and grasses found within the limits of the county. The intelligent farmer looks at once to the native vegetation as a sure indication of the value of new lands ; the kind of timber growing in a given locality will decide the qualities of the soil for agricultural purposes. The state of Illinois by the Botanist is usually considered under three divisions : the heavily timbered regions of the south, the flora of which is remarkable for its variety ; the central portion, consisting mainly of prairie, yet not without groves, which are usually adjacent to water courses ; and the northern section. The county of St. Clair represents the characteristics of both a timber and a prairie country. Few spectacles are so inspiringly beautiful as a grand prairie at certain seasons of the year, and yet the luxuriant vegetation, which at first view seems so various, comprisss but few species of plants. Upon the flora of this county civilization has produced its inevitable eflfects. As the Indian and the bufialo have disappeared before the white man, so have some of the native grasses been vanquished by the white clover and blue grass.

In speaking of these we purposely exclude the grain plants, those grasses which furnish food for man, and confine ourselves to those valuable grasses which are adapted to the sustenance of the inferior animals.

Native Woody Plants

Our article will particularly treat of the more valuable woods, utilized in the mechanic arts, and the grasses, plants, vegetables, and flowers most beneficial to man, and particularly those which are natives of this county. The plants are many and rare, some for beauty, and some for medicine. The pink-root, the columbo, the ginseng, the boneset, pennyroyal, and others are used for medicine. Plants of beauty are phlox, the lily, the asclepias, mints, golden rod, the eye-bright gerardia, and hundreds more, which adorn the meadows and brook-sides; besides the climbing vines, the trumpet creeper, the bitter sweet, the woodbine, the clematis, and the grape, which fill the woods with gay festoons, and add grace to many a decaying monarch of the forest, here are found the oak with at least its twenty varieties ; the hickory, with as many more species ; the thirty kinds of elm, from the sort which bear leaves as large as a man's hand, to the kind which bear a haf scarcely larger than a man's thumb-nail ; the black walnut, so tall, and straight and beautiful, is nearly gone ; the hackberry ; gum tree, black and sweet ; the tulip ; the giant cotton-woods, and hundreds more attest the fertility of the soil and mildness of the. climate. The White oak is much used in making furniture and agricultural implements, as are also the Panel oak, Burr oak and Pin oak. The Blue Ash is excellent for flooring. The Honey Locust is a very durable wood, and shrinks less than any other in seasoning.

In the above list we have given tiie scientific as well as the English names, believing such a course to pursue in the study of plants more beneficial to the student or general reader. There may be some plants omitted, yet we think the list quite complete.