A Remarkable Colony of Coastal Plain Plants on the Cumberland Plateau in Laurel County, Kentucky

Abstract

A small area of wet meadow and swamp forest on the Cumberland Plateau near the headwaters of the Laurel River in Laurel County, Kentucky, contains a remarkable assemblage of Plain species. Here are fifteen or sixteen distinctly Plain species and a number of others whose ranges might be stated as Coastal Plain and adjacent provinces. Furthermore, some of these species are among the commonest in the area concerned. Plain species occur in other places on the Cumberland Plateau; the remarkable feature of this colony is, however, the groupinlg together of so large a number of such species in a relatively small area. More than half the species have not as yet been seen elsewhere on the Cumberland Plateau.