NONHYGROPHILE INLAND VEGETATION. 395 



ing to 40 genera and 26 families, arc properly strand plants in the 

 Dismal Swamp country. Of the total number, no less than 12 are 

 Gramineae. Mosses and saprophytic, fleshy fungi are either wanting 

 or are present in such small numbers as to play an insignificant part 

 in the associations. Some lichens occur upon trees and shrubs, but 

 do not, as in parts of northern Europe, cover the ground on the fixed 

 inner dunes. Parasites, epiphytes, and saprophytes are biological 

 forms which are not represented by the higher plants of the true strand 

 formation (either marsh or sand strand). Their absence could almost 

 be predicated from a knowledge of the life conditions. 



A few introduced weeds, such as Capriola (Cynodon) dactylon, 

 Rumex acetosella, and Solatium nigrum, invade the Sand-Strand for- 

 mation, but in numbers so small as to be unimportant. Broadly 

 speaking, the flora of the strand is an indigenous one, and a majority 

 of its species are endemic to Atlantic North America. 



NONHYGBOPHILE INLAND FORMATIONS. 



The nonhygrophile inland formations occupy that great body of 

 land in the Dismal Swamp region which is neither wooded swamp, 

 river marsh, salt marsh, nor sand strand. The major part of it lies 

 north, east, and southeast of the Dismal Swamp proper. A small por- 

 tion of the country west and northwest of the morass (near Suffolk) 

 was visited in the course of tins survey and is here included; but the 

 Nansemond escarpment is to be understood as fixing the western limit 

 of the Dismal Swamp region, and the higher land west of it is not 

 treated in this report. Eastward and northeastward the wooded 

 plain extends to the strand and salt-marsh areas bordering the Ches- 

 apeake and the Atlantic. South of the swamp, along Albemarle 

 Sound, the same group of formations occurs, but was explored only 

 near Edenton, N. C. Newborn, on the Neuse River, in North Caro- 

 lina, which was twice visited, is considerably south of the Dismal 

 Swamp region, but supplemental data obtained there are intercalated 

 as being useful for comparison. The aquatic and palustrine vegeta- 

 tion of small marshes, ponds, and streams, intimately connected topo- 

 graphically with the wooded plain, are treated, for the sake of ecolog- 

 ical continuity, under the heading of "Low Marsh formation." 1 



The whole area thus defined was probably in its natural condition 

 covered with forest growth, but very much of it — more than one-half — 

 has been divested of its original plant covering, and is now cultivated 

 or in various stages of return to the forested condition. Cultivated 

 fields, abandoned fields, roadsides, and waste ground have each their 

 more or less distinctive plant covering, and will therefore be treated 

 as separate plant formations. 



The chief and almost the only factor regulating the ecological dis- 

 tribution of the inland vegetation is drainage. Quality of soil, depend- 

 ing upon whether sand, silt, or clay predominates, is chiefly important 



1 P. 4:tt>. 1 elow. 



