104 THE PLANT LIFE OF MARYLAND 



swamps which border streams. Upland Swamps commonly occupy 

 the ill-defined divides between streams, yet altogether identical 

 swamps occur back of broad areas of marsh. Many considerations 

 make it more natural to treat the Upland Swamps in connection with 

 the Upland rather than with the River Swamps and the Stream 

 Swamps, one of the most important of these being the easy transition 

 which often exists between the Upland and the Upland Swamps. 

 The poor drainage of the Talbot terrace causes considerable fluctua- 

 tions in the soil moisture conditions of Upland Swamps according to 

 rainfall. Inundation is common on the clay in the early summer; 

 on the lighter soils the fluctuations of moisture content with rainfall 

 are more rapid, and the Upland Swamps on these soils are more 

 sharply limited as well as more distinct from the Upland in their 

 vegetation than is the case on the clay. 



As pointed out in the introduction, the sandy loams and sands 

 predominate in the Talbot terrace south of the Nanticoke River, with 

 small areas of Elkton clay lying inland. On the Bay side of 

 Somerset County and north of the Nanticoke River the Elkton clay 

 and Meadow predominate in the Talbot terrace. Throughout 

 Somerset, Dorchester, Talbot and Queen Anne's counties the Upland 

 Clay Forest is a pure stand of the Loblolly Pine or a mixed stand in 

 which that tree is dominant. The existence of the pure stands is 

 to be accounted for in part by the possible influence of the immediate 

 proximity of tide-water in excluding other species, and in part by 

 the fact that in this area and upon this soil the Loblolly Pine is the 

 tree which most readily reseeds abandoned fields and some cut-over 



areas. In Worcester and Wicomici unties, where the areas of 



Elkton (.'lay lie remote from the tide-water, the forest exhibits a 

 predominant proportion of the same deciduous species which in less 

 percentages are characteristic of the soil nearer to tide water. In 

 Kent County the Loblolly Pine reaches its northernmost range and 

 pure stands of it have not been seen north of ('lift's Landing, on 

 ( 'luster River, nor isolated trees north of Fairlee. The Elkton clay 

 of Kent County, however, and the almost identical Meadow as well. 

 bear a forest made up of just those species which are associated with 

 the Loblolly Pine to the Southward. These are such trees as are 



