418 BOTANICAL SURVEY OF DISMAL SWAMP REGION. 



snmll part of it water 3 to 10 decimeters (1 to 3 feet) dot 1 ]), or oven 

 more, stands upon the surface of the ground during a great part of 

 the year. At all seasons the soil is nearly or quite saturated. Here 

 organic matter accumulates upon the surface in enormous quantities, 

 and we have, as Lesqueroux pointed out, a living example of that 

 process of coal formation which was so active in many parts of the 

 globe during the Carboniferous period. 1 On the eastern margin of 

 Lake Drummond the stratum of black, spongy humus is at least 3 

 meters (10 feet) deep, and perhaps considerably more. Underlying 

 these deposits are beds of sand and silt, often containing great num- 

 bers of fossil marine shells, probably of Pliocene age.' 2 



The most abundant tree of the deciduous forest is probably the 

 black gum (Nyssa biflora), although the red maple (Acer rubrum) is 

 almost equally so. This maple seems to be increasing in the swamps 

 more rapidly than any other tree, as thousands of its seedlings cover 

 flu 1 ground wherever there is no standing water. Cypress (Taxodium 

 distichum), while still fairly abundant in parts of the swamp, was 

 formerly much more so. Especially at the margin of bake Drum- 

 mond, a belt of old cypress stumps, many of great size, is evidence of 

 what must once have been a fine forest of this tree (tig. 5(5). The value 

 of the wood of the cypress, which has been assiduously sought after in 

 the swamp for a hundred years or more, is responsible for its present 

 relative scarcity. Taxodium reproduces itself very slowly, so that an 

 area once gleaned for merchantable timber is regarded by lumber- 

 men as permanently exhausted. Except upon small tracts of marshy 

 Land at the edge of Lake Drummond, where seedlings are quite plen- 

 tiful, :! there is very little evidence that this tree will regain its former 

 importance in the Dismal Swamp. Nevertheless, it is still the largest 

 tree of the region, specimens 35 meters (120 feet) high and 12 or even 

 15 decimeters (4 or 5 feet) in diameter above the swollen base being 

 not infrequent. 



The black gum (Nyssa biflora) is often nearly as tall (sometimes 30 

 meters, 100 feet), but smaller, usually 3 to decimeters (1 to 2 feet) 

 through above the enlarged base. Red maple (Acer rubrum) grows 

 to a height of 20 to 25 meters (70 to SO feet), but the trees are almost 

 always small, not much exceeding 3 decimeters (1 foot) in diameter. 

 In many parts of the swamp cotton gum (Nyssa uniflora), locally 



1 Lesquereux, Torfbildung im grossen Dismal Swamp; Zeirschr. iter dentsche 

 geologische (Tesellch.. vol. 4. pp. 695 to 0i)7. 



•Shaler, Tenth Ann. Kept. TJ. S. Geol. Surv..p.315 (1890). 



:i Shaler, in an interesting paper upon the bald cypress (Mem. Mus. Compar. 

 Zool Harvard, 1<>, No. I. pp. I to 15, l.ssT). suggests that Taxodium propagates in 

 some vegetative manner. That the wood of this tree can send out leafy shoots 

 after being felled wjis shown by a number of cypress posts which were used 

 as a support for a grapevine at Great Bridge, Va., and had produced numerous 

 sprouts, doubtless from dormant buds. Whether roots were developed from 

 these stems was not ascertained, and would hardly be expected. The speces 

 produces fruit quite abundantly in this region. 



