216 Harper: THE ‘“Pocosin” OF PIKE County, ALA. 
The proportion of evergreens is usually somewhat larger in the 
hammocks nearer the coast, however. The more remote relation- 
ships of this vegetation may be indicated by saying that it is 
intermediate in character between the deciduous forests that are 
common on rich uplands in the moderately humid parts of the 
North Temperate zone, and the “sclerophyllous forests’ of 
Warming and other European ecologists. 
A list of the characteristic plants of the ravines will complete 
the description of the pocosin vegetation. They are about as 
follows (the arrangement being the same as in the two preceding 
lists) : 
TREES 
Osmanthus americana Cornus florid 
Magnolia grandiflora Symplocos tinctoria 
Ilex opaca Hicoria alba 
Liriodendron ig ate Fagus grandifolia 
agnolia glau 
SHRUBS 
Kalmia latifolia Ilex coriacea 
HERBS 
Asarum arifolium Smilax pumila 
MosseEs 
Thuidium sp. 
Evergreens are decidedly in the majority here. 
Previous visitors to this place have been more or less mystified 
by the occurrence of such luxuriant vegetation in such sandy soil. 
The explanation is doubtless the same as for other sandy hammocks, 
and is very simple to one familiar with conditions in South Georgia 
and Florida. 
The pocosin area, exclusive of the ravines, was presumably at 
some time in the past covered with the same sort of sand-hill 
vegetation that now partly surrounds it. Vegetation of a denser, 
more “‘climactic’’* type must have gradually spread from the creek 
valley up the ravines to their heads, and then out across the 
* This ad jective, derived from climax, is rarely if ever seen in botanical “litera- 
ture, but some such word seems to be needed. Some ecologists have been using 
climatic, an entirely different word, to convey essentially the meaning here intended; 
while many use climax and mesophytic more or less interchangeably, which seems 
to be a perversion of the original meaning of the latter. 
