ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF EAST TEXAS - Brit - Botanical Research ...

OVERVIEW OF THE FLORA/INTRODUCTION 3
How does one define the limits of a region like East Texas for a floristic work such as this? One
simple method would be to simply limit the flora to the Pineywoods (vegetational area 1 of Correll
and Johnston (1970) and Hatch et al. (1990)—Fig 3). Another approach would be to cover both
the Pineywoods and the floristically related Post Oak Savannah (vegetational areas 1 and 3).
Unfortunately, the vegetational areas of Texas do not make for easily drawn lines on maps (see Figs.
4, 5). Portions of the Post Oak Savannah and the Blackland Prairie are extensively intermingled,
and parts of the Blackland Prairie extend into the Pineywoods. Further, as pointed out by
MacRoberts et al. (2002c), “the east Texas flora clearly extends into those counties just east of Austin
and San Antonio.” Therefore, it was decided that in order to make this work as useful as possible,
three major vegetational areas, the Pineywoods, the Post Oak Savannah, and the Blackland Prairie,
would be included. In addition, the area adjacent to the Red River (typically classified as part of the
Post Oak Savannah), which we designate as the Red River Area (Fig. 2), was covered. Coastal Texas
(the Gulf Prairies and Marshes vegetational area) was excluded because the tremendous number of
1 PINEYWOODS
2 GULF PRAIRIES AND MARSHEs
3 POST OAK SAVANNAH
(INCLUDING RED RIVER AREA)
4 BLACKLAND PRAIRIES
5 CROSS TIMBERS AND PRAIRIES
6 SOUTH TEXAS PLAINS
7 EDWARDS PLATEAU
8 ROLLING PLAINS
9 HIGH PLAINS
10 TRANS-PECOS, MOUNTAINS AND BASINS
FIG. 1/ VEGETATIONAL AREAS OF EAST TEXAS IN RELATION TO THE REST OF THE STATE. FIGURE PRODUCED BY BRIT/AUSTIN COLLEGE;
REPRODUCTION OF THIS IMAGE DOES NOT REQUIRE COPYRIGHT PERMISSION.
VEGETATIONAL AREAS
OF EAST TEXAS