PLANTS OF SOUTHERN NEW JERSEY. 73 



cides very closely with Mr. Vermeule's boundary of the conifer- 

 ous forest (see colored map), the only important differences being 

 some projections to include outlying Pine Barren ''peninsulas" or 

 "islands," especially the region southeast of Clementon, and the 

 exclusion of the coast strip, a similar strip along the bay shore 

 from Port Norris to Dennisville, which belongs to the Middle or 

 West Jersey district, and the Cape May peninsula south of the 

 great Cedar Swamp, which, although it contains some Pine Bar- 

 ren "islands," is mainly coastal and W^est Jersey in its affinities, 

 as already explained. 



The errors in most attempts to outline the Pine Barren region 

 were due to a total lack of knowledge of the southwestern por- 

 tion of the State, the prevailing idea being that the Pines must 

 cover all of the yellow gravel tertiary area, while as a matter of 

 fact they stop short at the Maurice river, the region west of this, 

 especially north of Bridgeton, being fine farm land, often rolling 

 with patches of deciduous forest here and there. 



The boundary line between the Pine Barrens and the "Middle" 

 and "Coastal" districts which bound it, respectively, on the west 

 and east, is not a straight or sharp one; narrow tongues of the 

 two floras interlace and often both elements will be found in the 

 same bog or swamp along the border line. On the east, moreover, 

 the peculiar coastal flora will be found running up the tidewater 

 streams and their tributaries well into the Pine Barrens as far, 

 for instance, as Toms River, Batsto, Mays Landing and Mill- 

 ville, where artificial dams now seem to mark the limit of the 

 coastal intrusion. On other streams the coast plants follow back 

 to the natural limit of tidewater, and perhaps some isolated 

 colonies of such species well within the Pine Barrens owe their 

 presence to the intrusion along tidewater streams that were sub- 

 sequently dammed. In grouping the records in the systematic 

 part of this report the same locality may often be put in one dis- 

 trict under one species and another under another, when it is 

 located on the border line between the two. Mays Landing, for 

 instance, is cited as a Pine Barren locality for the Pine Barren 

 species occurring above the dam, while when cited in connection 

 with the coastal plants occurring below the dam, it is placed in the 

 Coastal district. In addition to the main Pine Barren district 



