302 



The Ohio Naturalist. 



[Vol. V, No. 5, 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE ON A CERTAIN SANDBAR. 



JOHX H. SCHAFFXER. 



In the year 1900, the RepubHcan River which flows through 

 Clay County, Kansas, was very low for a long tiine. This gave 

 an opportunity for the development of a thick growth of vege- 

 tation on the wide sandbars common along this stream. 



The writer was much impressed by the remarkable develop- 

 ment of young trees on some of these bars and made a careful 

 study of one of them to ascertain what seedlings were growing 

 under the conditions present. The picture given below (Fig. 1) 





i!L:i-. 







was taken from near the water's edge and shows the river bank 

 in the background, covered with a solid belt of the Sandbar Wil- 

 low (Salix fluviatilis Nutt.) This bar had been nearly barren 

 the previous year but now it was covered with little trees. The 

 only seedlings present, except here and there some herbaceous 

 plant, were Cottonwoods (Populus deltoides Marsh.), Peachleaf 

 Willows (Salix amygdaloides And.), and Sandbar Willows (Salix 

 fluviatilis Nutt.) In some places the three species were about 

 equally mixed, in others nearly all of the plantlets were of a single 

 species. Near the outer margin where there was a thinner stand, 

 as shown in the foreground of the picture, eighty Cottonwood 

 plants from twelve to eighteen inches high were counted per 

 square foot. But among these eighty survivors were numerous 



