1909.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 379 



characterizes the long established marshes arises. This stage of 

 development seems to mark the culmination of the salt marsh vege- 

 tation. If the marsh rises above the level where the typic salt marsh 

 plants can grow, a different kind of drainage of the marsh is established 

 and the salt marsh plants are replaced by others. The decay of the 

 remains of the salt marsh plants produces holes here and there over the 

 surface of the marsh, which, in the parlance of the sea coast farmer, 

 becomes "rotten." 



The composition of the salt marsh vegetation of the northern 

 New Jersey coast can be illustrated best by a study of several 

 typic kinds of marshes as they occur from Sandy Hook Bay south to 

 Manasquan Inlet. The description and the sketches which accom- 

 pany them will illustrate the similarities, as well as the differences, 

 induced by a difference in the edaphic factors of the several localities. 8 



The salt marshes at Water Witch Park, a resort on the north slopes 

 of the Navesink Highlands, along Sandy Hook Bay, along the channel 

 edge of Plum Island, along the east front of the Highlands, a marsh 

 island in the Navesink River, at Navesink Beach and at Normandie 

 consist of Spartina stricta maritime/, (sp. gr. 1.017-1.0185) where a 

 muddy bottom is found, but it disappears where sand and gravel form 

 the river bottom. Associated with this salt grass in front of the Nave- 

 sink Highlands are found Spartina polystachya, together with Atriplex 

 kastata and Tissa marina. At Navesink Beach is a low mud island 

 formed five or six years ago, but now completely covered with Spartina 

 stricta maritima. The second inner strip consists of the low salt grass 

 Spartina patens, together with patches of Salicornia herbacea, as at 

 Water Witch Park, Scirpus pungens at Navesink Highlands, with a 

 few specimens of Solidago sempervirens and Salicornia herbacea. On the 

 marsh island in the Navesink River, Spartina patens is associated with 

 Distichlis spicata, covering nearly half an acre of the island, between 

 which and the outer fringe of salt grass occur in mixed growth (sp. gr. 

 1.0180) Limonium carolinianum, Spartina patens, Plantago maritima, 



8 The edaphic conditions were determined during the summer of 1909 by means 

 of a specific gravity hydrometer with a scale reading from 0.995 to 1.065, good 

 to four decimal places by a secondary subdivision of the scale. An attached 

 thermometer allowed readings to be made from — 15° to +45° Centigrade. 

 By means of this hydrometer the character of the submerging water, or water from 

 holes dug in the marsh soil, which influenced the roots or bases of each marsh 

 species, was determined. The results are given in specific gravities. Abso- 

 lutely pure water (distilled) reads 1.0000 on the scale, and sea water taken from 

 the surf at Belmar at 21.1° C. reads 1.0215, so that the figures from the different 

 marsh habitats approach closely the first figure if the water is fresh or the second 

 figure if more or less saline. The specific gravities, as far as possible, are given 

 in parentheses, leaving the detailed results for a subsequent paper. 



