Forest Development in the Adirondacks 19 
ber 1 after continuous fall rains resulting in areas of open 
> 
water on the marsh, 33 inches. 
The Plant Associations on the Peat Beds 
While the vegetation complex seems diversified and of more 
or less haphazard occurrence, it may on closer inspection be 
referred to a few aspects or stages constituting a developing 
sequence with pure sphagnum sedge meadow as the apparent 
pioneer association and the old stand of black spruce and tama- 
rack forest as the temporary, edaphic climax. It should be 
remembered, however, that in speaking of the sphagnum sedge 
meadow as the pioneer association, it is not to be inferred that 
this was the pioneer vegetation of the original sand plain, but 
only of the peat blanket which covers the sand and which is 
itself a vegetation product. Moreover, the evidences of a 
former bog forest as shown by the presence of fire charred logs, 
stumps and occasional standing snags show that we are here 
dealing with a secondary though normal bog sequence. 
(1) The Sphagnum-Sedge Association (Figure +) 
This is a low, very flat bog-meadow type of vegetation with 
a close and almost pure stand of Carex oligosperma growing 
in a continuous sphagnum matrix. There is a sparse occur- 
rence of tussock sedge, cotton sedge, Vagnera trifolia, 
Viola blanda, dwarf cranberry, closed gentian and certain 
others, not all characteristic bog species it will be observed. 
The failure to note such expected species as sundew, pitcher 
plant, rose pogonia, and calopogon is noteworthy in this asso- 
ciation, and may no doubt be ascribed to the effects of burning 
and pasturage and the summer surface drying to which this 
section of the bog is now especially subject. Where the sedge 
meadow is partially broken up by sphagnum-shrub mounds 
and where the sedge mat is therefore wetter and unburned, 
these species occur about as in typical open bogs. The peat 
here is shallow, being from 8 inches to 2 feet in depth and is 
bound by the sedge roots into a firm sod. (Figure 6.) In this 
association the peat is darker and approaches more the quality 
