Vegetation of Certain Sand Plains of Connecticut

Abstract

1. The plant communities lying above the influence of the ground water table on coarse sandy terraces in the townships of Wallingford and North Haven, Connecticut, are mainly stages in three subseres which probably lead up to a xerophytic oak edaphic climax. 2. The subseres are developing on: ridges of wind-deposited sand, superimposed on a grassland type of soil profile; level areas with a truncated soil profile, lacking an A horizon; level areas with soil profile intact. 3. Differentiation of initial habitats resulted from, and followed, cultivation and wind erosion of the area in the eighteenth century. 4. Vegetation on the ridges consists of trees, primarily black oak and gray birch, forming an open canopy, with a scattering undergrowth of forbs, especially Polygonella articulata, grasses, shrubs, and occasional mats of mosses and lichens. Truncated soils have an extremely open cover of Andropogon scoparius and Trichostema dichotomum. Increase in abundance and cover is brought about chiefly through un...