KEY AND GUIDE TO NATIVE TREES, SHRUBS AND WOODY VINES OF DALLAS COUNTY
by
NORMA STILLWELL
Dallas, Texas
April, 1939
PRINTED BY
PROCTOR-ADAMS PRINTING SERVICE
DALLAS, TEXAS
PREFACE
This simple key and guide to the woody plants—trees,shrubs and woody vines—which grow naturally in DallasCounty, Texas, has been prepared to help beginners ofany age in getting better acquainted with these leafyneighbors and friends. Woody plants offer one of the bestplaces to begin a study of nature: first because there arebut few kinds to learn in comparison with many otherliving forms—about 90 of these plants against estimatednumbers for the county of about 300 birds, 500 to 1000other flowering plants and over 25,000 insects; second,woody plants remain in one place, freely available forobservation at any hour or season and year after year—ifthey escape human interference. And what more helpfullink toward acquaintance with other interesting formsof natural life can be found than an intimate friendshipwith their mutual friends, the trees!
The distinctions between trees and shrubs or betweenshrubs and woody vines are often purely arbitrary, dependingin part on age. A plant which grows at leasttwenty feet tall and usually (not always) has just onewoody, self-supporting stem at the ground is considereda tree. A plant which rarely grows taller than twentyfeet, in a given region, and usually has more than onewoody stem rising from the ground is considered a shrub.The separation of herbs from woody plants divides thoseplants which usually die down to the ground each winterfrom those having woody stems which persist aboveground year after year. Some ninety different woodyplants are distinguished from one another and brieflydescribed in this key and guide. Each description representsa single species with the exception of the cactus,yucca, red oaks and red haws; the differences between thevarious species of these plants are too complex for thisbrief manual.
Scientific names are included here, not with anythought that they should be memorized or that they needbe used in ordinary conversation, but to avoid the possibilityof misunderstandings such as often arise fromsome common names which are used by different personsto designate different plants. Many plants have morethan one common name and often one common name isused for two or more quite unlike plants. Common nameslisted first are the ones considered more suitable.
The first part of the scientific name represents thegenus (plural, genera), a degree of relationship or groupingsmaller than the family but more inclusive than thespecies. The second name represents the species or specifickind of plant; species are occasionally divided intovarieties (var.). The abbreviation following the scientificname stands for the name of the botanist who firstdescribed or named the plant, scientifically. L. stands forLinnaeus, “the father of modern botany”, who first usedthis double-name (binomial) system of scientific classification.
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