REPORT ON FORESTS. 245 



region called the River-swamp, which is seldom completely 

 flooded. Here, several of the trees which grow in southern New 

 Jersey reach their optimum. Many trees which thrive in water 

 in the south cannot live in the swamp-lands in the north, because 

 of their coldness, but thrive on the upland. By the term swamp 

 is merely meant a wet, muddy region, covered with a wild growth 

 of trees and bushes. 



To wet, almost treeless or treeless areas, the terms savanna, 

 morass, bog, slough and marsh are applicable. The term 

 savanna is usually applied to lowlands covered with grasses and 

 other herbaceous plants ; the terms morass and bog, to extremely 

 spongy, sphagnaceous lands ; and the term marsh, to the soft, 

 muddy deposits around and along bodies of both salt and fresh 

 water. Some are inclined to restrict the term marsh to those 

 areas formed in salt water. There is little reason for this, since 

 salt and fresh marshes are essentially alike in formation. All 

 these terms are, unfortunately, exceedingly elastic in meaning. 

 A cedar swamp, for instance, is a swamp while covered with 

 trees, but when cut over, cleared and planted with cranberries, 

 it becomes a bog. 



Much of the swamp-land in the Coastal Plain of New Jersey, 

 although merely moist and extremely fertile, will probably 

 remain in woods for many years to come, because of the diffi- 

 culty in clearing it. A swamp bottom consists of the forest 

 detritus of ages, and is a matted mass of roots, stumps and tree 

 trunks. 



The swamp-land may, for the sake of convenience, be divided 

 into cedar swamps and deciduous or hardwood swamps. 



The white cedar (Cham&cyparis thy aides)* the finest soft 

 wood of the region, grows in dense pure forests. The tree is 

 tall, straight and sharp-pointed. The bases of the crowns meet 

 to form a solid canopy. The trees grow so close that one sup- 

 ports another, and when a few are cut, or felled by storm, others 

 in the neighborhood, deprived of their support, fall in every 

 direction. The limbs are often festooned with a gray lichen 

 ( Usnea barbata], the pendant tufts of which are favorite nesting 

 places of the Parula warbler (Compsothlypsis americana). These 



*This tree should not be confounded with the white cedar or aibor vitse of the north (Thuya occi- 

 dentalis). 



