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

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HISTORY OF BIG THICKET/INTRODUCTION 183 During the Pleistocene Epoch, the fauna of what is now the Big Thicket was even more varied. Much of East Texas had an extremely rich megafauna, including a wide variety of now extinct mammals, comprising part of an ecosystem that is now difficult for us to even imagine (see related discussion on page 142). Mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, giant bison, giant armadillos, giant beavers, extinct horses, tapirs, llamas, camels, saber-toothed cats, and dire wolves have all been reported from Texas (Shuler 1934; Geiser 1945b; Loughmiller & Loughmiller 1977; Truett & Lay 1984; Smeins 1988; Finsley 1989; Fox et al. 1992; Abernethy 1996; Pinsof & Echols 1997). PRESETTLEMENT AND EARLY SETTLEMENT HISTORY OF THE BIG THICKET—The area now known as the Big Thicket had long been utilized by Native Americans such as the Bidai, Deadose, Patiri, and Akiosa (all subgroups of the Atakapa), particularly as a hunting area (Newcomb 1961; Gunter 1993; Smith 1995), and ceremonial mounds and rock rings can still be observed in the area today (D. Shine, pers. comm.). Two large mounds, locally known as the “mountains,” are present near the Neches River in Hardin County. The largest of these is 15–20 feet (6.5–6 m) tall and nearly 100 feet (30.5 m) long (D. Shine, pers. comm.). In Tyler County, also on the Neches River, Shine (pers. comm.) has observed rock rings, apparently made by Native Americans. It is unknown who the first Europeans were to traverse the region. While the Spanish were the earliest Europeans to establish settlements in Texas, they appear to have largely avoided the seemingly impenetrable area (e.g., El Camino Real skirted the northern boundary). For early European settlers, the Big Thicket, as the name implies, was an inaccessible area. According to Gunter (1993), The picture which comes down to us is of wagons, blocked time and time again by dense growth and swampy soils along innumerable streams. Frustrated, the pioneers turned back and pushed west instead, either along the open coastal prairie to the south or the rolling, more broken woods to the north. Mile after mile of meandering jungle streams must have seemed like a gigantic, forbidding wilderness indeed. They called the obstacle the Big Thicket, and the name endured. For the most part the settlers avoided it; the stream of settlement divided and flowed around it, leaving it largely undisturbed. Travel in much of the region was indeed hard, particularly for wagons, and most “who penetrated and traversed this wilderness area prior to the early 1800s did so mostly on foot or on horseback” (McLeod 1972). However, the idea of inaccessibility should not be overemphasized since there were Native American trails as well as access by streams and rivers. Likewise, there were extensive areas of open longleaf pine woodland and other open plant communities (even prairie), even though these were embedded in a complex vegetational mosaic including extensive, difficult to traverse swamps, bogs, and thickets. The first person known to actually “own” a portion of the Big Thicket was apparently Lorenzo de Zavala, who held claim through an 1829 Mexican land grant (Abernethy 1996). However, significant settlement of the region awaited Anglo immigrants from the southern U.S., who entered the area from the east by crossing the Sabine River. Lured in part by the promise of lavish Spanish land grants, they began settling areas on the edge of the Big Thicket in the 1820s and 1830s (McLeod 1972; Loughmiller & Loughmiller 1977; Owens 1978; Gunter 1993) and eventually began to move into and establish homesteads in the interior (e.g., John Bevil at Jasper in 1824 and settlements near Woodville and Hillister about 1830— McLeod 1972). Settlers came in increasing numbers and in 1836, the year of Texas independence from Mexico, the first four Big Thicket counties (Jasper, Liberty, Sabine, and San Augustine) were formed (Owens 1973). Owens (1973) wrote of the people who settled the area as having, …a character not too different from that to be found in any of the southern mountain or lowland states, coming as it did from essentially the same stock. Most of the early settlers in East Texas were
184 INTRODUCTION/HISTORY OF BIG THICKET descended from the English, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh who had populated Virginia and the Carolinas and by the time of the Revolutionary War had moved westward as far as Kentucky. As new territory opened up they flowed in great numbers into Georgia and then on to Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, bringing with them the language, lore, and Calvinistic beliefs which were perpetuated as much in Big Thicket settlements as in lonely valleys in the Southern Appalachians. The few who owned slaves brought them. Most were poor whites who came by oxcart and brought with them only the tools to build log houses and clear land for crops. Once they arrived, the Big Thicket put its stamp on the people who lived (and still live) there and shaped their lives and culture by the physical demands and the isolation it imposed (Loughmiller & Loughmiller 1977; Owens 1978). While roads were relatively easy to build on some of the pine-covered uplands, it was a very different story in the lower, wetter areas. Therefore, much early transportation utilized the waterways of the region (McLeod 1972). The isolation persisted in many unelectrified areas outside the towns even until after World War II. There was a rich tradition of oral history and square dancing to fiddle and guitar, and in “…log cabins lighted only with the flame of a pitch pine knot people sang ballads that stretched back to Shakespeare’s time and earlier, songs of lords and ladies, ballads of love and murder and ghosts at night returning” (Owens 1978). Legends rapidly grew about the Big Thicket, with Gunter (1993) describing them as: …luxuriant as its own swamps and choking undergrowth. In part the rapid growth of these legends stemmed from what was called the Neutral Ground, which bordered the region to the east. After the Louisiana Purchase the United States and Spain could not agree on a boundary between Louisiana and Texas. They did agree, however, on the existence of a neutral ground between the Arroyo Hondo on the east and the Sabine River on the west, where settlement was forbidden. Rather FIG. 101/ STEAMBOAT LAURA BLOCKED BY LOG-RAFT JAM ON NECHES RIVER, ABOUT 1880. PHOTO COURTESY JASPER HISTORICAL COMMISSION,JASPER.
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ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF EAST TEXAS
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ALLDREDGE, LINDA & JACK BATTERBAE,
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We would like to recognize and expr
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ISSN 0833-1475 ISBN 1-889878-12-X S
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“DEEP EAST TEXAS IS AN OLD, QUIET
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Elray S. Nixon E lray Nixon was bor
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ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF EAST TEXAS TAB
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TABLE OFCONTENTS/ PAGE APPENDICES A
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Hymenocallis liriosme
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ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF EAST TEXAS OVE
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4 INTRODUCTION/GEOGRAPHIC AREA OF E
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10 INTRODUCTION/MAJOR RIVERS OF EAS
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12 INTRODUCTION/PLANTS TREATED The
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14 INTRODUCTION/GUIDE TO ARRANGEMEN
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16 INTRODUCTION/GUIDE TO SOURCES OF
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18 INTRODUCTION/GUIDE TO GEOGRAPHIC
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20 INTRODUCTION/GUIDE TO ENDANGERED
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22 INTRODUCTION/GUIDE TO GLOSSARY,
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24 INTRODUCTION/GUIDE TO ABBREVIATI
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26 INTRODUCTION/SUMMARY DATA ON FLO
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28 INTRODUCTION/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Kar
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30 INTRODUCTION/AUTHORS’ NOTE Pre
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32 INTRODUCTION/GENERAL GEOLOGY OF
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46 INTRODUCTION/SOILS SOIL ORDER DE
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48 INTRODUCTION/SOILS, EAST TEXAS B
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50 INTRODUCTION/SOIL-RELATED GEOLOG
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60 INTRODUCTION/SOILS OF BLACKLAND
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66 INTRODUCTION/CLIMATE OF EAST TEX
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Forests define East Texas, and to a
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78 INTRODUCTION/GEOLOGY OF PINEYWOO
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80 INTRODUCTION/PRESETTLEMENT, EARL
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88 INTRODUCTION/PRESETTLEMENT VEGET
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90 INTRODUCTION/CURRENT VEGETATION
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106 INTRODUCTION/POST OAK SAVANNAH
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110 INTRODUCTION/GEOLOGY AND SOILS
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112 INTRODUCTION/SOILS, FIRE, AND T
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114 INTRODUCTION/SOILS, FIRE, AND T
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116 INTRODUCTION/ PRESETTLEMENT, EA
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118 INTRODUCTION/VEGETATION OF POST
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124 INTRODUCTION/CONDITIONS TODAY O
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128 INTRODUCTION/RED RIVER AREA are
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130 INTRODUCTION/BLACKLAND PRAIRIE
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234 INTRODUCTION/HISTORY OF BOTANY
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244 INTRODUCTION/BOTANY IN NORTH CE
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246 INTRODUCTION/BOTANY IN NORTH CE
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248 INTRODUCTION/BOTANY AT UNIVERSI
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250 INTRODUCTION/BOTANY AT TEXAS A&
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252 INTRODUCTION/BOTANY AT TEXAS A&
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254 INTRODUCTION/OTHER CONTRIBUTION
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256 INTRODUCTION/CURRENT BOTANICAL
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258 INTRODUCTION/BOTANICAL ART IN E
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