362 -HarPER: COASTAL PLAIN OF THE CAROLINAS 
are described or mentioned in nearly all works of a geographical 
nature dealing with the coastal plain of North Carolina, especially 
the publications of Emmons,* Kerr, Ashe, t andthe U. S. Bureau 
of Soils, § but in all these descriptions unfortunately most of the 
plants are mentioned only by their common names, and nothing 
like a complete list of species is attempted. A pocosin may be 
briefly described as an extensive flat, damp, sandy or peaty area, 
supporting a scattered growth of pine (mostly Pius serotina) and 
a very dense growth of shrubs, mostly evergreens, giving the whole 
a decided heath-like aspect — the term heath being used here in 
the sense of a certain type of vegetation || rather than as the name 
of a certain class of plants, though these shrubs are indeed largely 
of the Ericaceae and allied families. What the earlier and later 
stages of a pocosin may be, probably no one has ever determined ; 
but this would be a most interesting subject for ecological study. 
Pocosins have no exact counterpart in Georgia, but in their vege- 
tation, though not so much in topography, they much resemble some 
there is a settlement named Poquoson on a river of the same name. In South Carolina 
the term seems to be used in a somewhat different sense. John Lawson, in his ‘* New 
Voyage to Carolina,’”’ published in 1709, speaks of ‘* Percoarson, a sort of low Land,” 
near the Santee River, containing cypress trees (which are not at all sogugen era of 
North Carolina pocosins), and the ‘‘ pocosons’’ described by C. S. Chapma 
hace 56 of th . Bureau of Forestry seem to be nothing more nor less ae cy: 
press ponds. (On ie other hand, the ‘‘ savannas’’ of these two writers correspond more 
nearly with pocosins as here understood.) Just as I was leaving Alabama on this same 
trip T heard of a ‘* pocosin’”’ in Pike County (Eocene region of the nee plain) which 
from the description given must have been much like some of the hammocks of South 
Georgia and adjacent Florida (particularly those described by Croom in ye m. Jour. Sci. 
26: 318. 1834). In Georgia, however, I have never found the slightest evidence of 
the use of such a word. It is a curious coincidence that while pocosins, like hammocks, 
are confined to the coastal plain, they do not seem to be known within the range of 
Pinus Elliottii. This is illustrated by the absence of the term from Georgia, Florida, 
and the Alabama pine-barrens, as far as known, and by Bulletin 43 of the U. S. Bureau 
of Forestry, which treats of a part of South Carolina not far distant from that described 
in Bulletin 56, but within the range of this pine. dn this bulletin the word pocosin is 
not used, and no feature of that kind is even desc 
* 2d Rep. N. C. Geol. Surv. (Agriculture of tp eastern counties), page 38. 1858. 
ep. N. C, Geol. Surv. for 1875 ; also report on cotton production in On vol. 
of pees Pageneat 1884. 
f Bull. N. C. Geol. Surv. 5: 17, 28, 34; 6: 179-181. 
ee Operations of the Bureau of Soils, rg00: 36, 38, 204-205, p/. 25 ° 1903 * 
269-270; 1905: (in reports on Perquimans, Pasquotank and Duplin counties, not yet 
paged consecutively 
|| See Cowles, Bot Gaz. 27: 367-369. f. 2g-26. 1899. 
SE Ree NR a Ty Oa ee ee So ee ED) 
