tablished. Drainage from 224 km of ditches and the 

 soil compaction and damming effect of 252 km of 

 roads, exacerbated by accelerating rates of 

 upstream runoff, have seriously lowered the water 

 table in many areas and impounded and flooded 

 others. The net effect has been to progressively 

 replace the distinctive cypress and Atlantic white 

 cedar communities by a relatively uniform red maple- 

 black gum forest. An extensive master plan was 

 developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

 (USFWS 1 986b) in an effort to reverse this trend. Key 

 aspects of the proposed management program (in 

 review at the time of this writing) are outlined in Chap- 

 ter 6. 



2.4.2 South Carolina 



Information on South Carolina cedar wet- 

 lands flora and its distribution was provided by J. Nel- 

 son (pers. comm.) and D.A. Rayner (pers. comm.). 

 Early records of the botanical and logging history of 

 North and South Carolina are described by Frost 

 (1987 and unpubl.)(Figure 14). 



Radford (1976) lists five counties in South 

 Carolina having populations of white cedar: Lexi- 

 ngton, Kershaw, Chesterfield, Darlington, and 

 Marlboro. Populations are also known from Horry, 

 Georgetown, Richland, and Sumter Counties, and it 

 is very likely that white cedar is also present in Aiken 

 County. All but two of these counties are part of the 

 midlands of South Carolina, where extensive 

 acreages of xeric sandhills are associated with 

 palustrine communities. Francis Marion National 

 Forest contains a few small cedar stands. 



The South Carolina Heritage Trust data base 

 places Chamaecyparis habitats within the "Atlantic 

 White Cedar Bog" community. All the sites found 

 within sandhill areas are quite similar (J. Nelson, pers. 

 comm.). They always seem to be associated with 

 creek drainages and may extend for several miles 

 near the base of a slope at the creek edge. White 

 cedar forms dense forest at times and sometimes 

 moves onto the sides of the adjacent hills, especially 

 if there is a hardpan of ironstone near the top that for- 

 ces water out along the slopes as intermittent 

 seepages. The water within the sandhill creeks is 

 either clear or tea-colored: its color appears to be re- 

 lated to the size of the stream itself and the distance 

 it has flowed from its headwaters. 



In very wet areas, abundant Sphagnum is 

 found with lady's slipper {Cyprepedium acaule). cin- 

 namon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea), and sedges 

 (especially fl/?ync/?ospora spp.). Golden club (Oron- 

 tiumaquaticum), tuckahoe {Peltandra virginica), and 

 pitcher plant (Sarracenia rubra) are also found. 

 Shrubs in these bogs usually include fetterbush 

 (Lyonia lucida), gallberries (//ex spp.), blueberries 



(Vaccinium spp.), titi (Cyrilla racemiflora), and 

 greenbrier (Smilax laurifolia). Vaccinium semper- 

 virens, a low shrub thought to be endemic to some 

 Lexington Carolina bays are a wetland type of un- 

 known origin primarily restricted to North and South 

 Carolina. The bays, dominated by evergreen shrubs, 

 form elongated elliptical depressions on a northwest, 

 southeast axis (Richardson 1981). 



County drainages, co-occurs with Atlantic 

 white cedar (Rayner and Henderson 1980). Red 

 maple, red bay loblolly bay (Gordonia iasiantlius), 

 sweet bay, and black gum are frequently seen tree 

 species which sometimes occur as large, branched 

 shrubs. Pond pine is occasionally present. In 

 general, these bogs tend to have essentially the 

 same sort of vegetation as many of the pocosin sites 

 in South Carolina, but with a higher and thicker 

 canopy, and perhaps a less diverse shrub layer 



An unusual white cedar wetland, with a dif- 

 ferent suite of species, is found in Sumter County 

 There is also at least one large Carolina bay in South 

 Carolina (on the bombing range of an Air Force base) 

 containing large white cedars. Carolina bays are a 

 wetland type of unknown origin primarily restricted to 

 North and South Carolina. The bays, dominated by 

 evergreen shrubs, form elongated elliptical depres- 

 sions on a northwest, southeast axis (Richardson 

 1981). A cross section through a Carolina bay with 

 Cliamaecyparis is shown in Figure 16. 



2.5 JUNIPER SWAMPS OF THE SOUTHEAST 



2.5.1 Overview 



Atlantic white cedar reaches its south- 

 ernmost distributional limits in Florida and along the 

 gulf coast of Alabama and Mississippi (Figure 17). 

 The cedar of Mississippi, Alabama, and western 

 Florida differs in some vegetative and reproductive 

 characters from that in eastern Florida and 

 northward. Although controversy surrounds its 

 taxonomy (A. Gholson, pers. comm.; Li 1962), the 

 accepted designation is C. thyoides var henryae (E. 

 Little 1966). Literature on Atlantic white cedar in 

 Florida and along the gulf coast is sparse. Ward 

 (1963) and Collins et al. (1964) briefly described the 

 two southernmost stands of the species, which are 

 both in peninsular Florida. Despite the fact that the 

 largest cedar living today grows in Alabama (see 

 Section 3.2.4), as of this writing scientific literature on 

 Atlantic white cedar in that state is virtually nonex- 

 istent. In 1791, William Bartram 

 described strange cedars growing along the Escam- 

 bia River, noting their similarity to, and differences 



22 



