NEW Y< * 



BOTANICAL 

 QAUDEN 



TORREYA 



\ T ol. 34 July-August, 1934 No. 4 



A Talbot cypress swamp at Greenbury Point, Maryland 

 Charles T. Berry 



Greenbury Point is situated easterly across the Severn 

 River from Annapolis in Anne Arundel County, Maryland and 

 is mapped by the Maryland Geological Survey as Talbot 

 formation. As a matter of fact although most of the Point was 

 bevelled by the Talbot sea to form the Talbot terrace of late 

 Pleistocene age much of the area is made up of sediments be- 

 longing to the Aquia formation (Eocene). In the summer of 



1932 the writer discovered, as a result of wave cutting, another 

 of those interesting buried bald cypress forests wlich are so 

 frequently found in the Pleistocene of the Coastal Plain north 

 of the present northern limits of the bald cypress. 1 



This buried cypress swamp was revisited on September 28, 



1933 by Dr. R. E. L. Collins and the author at which time a 

 great number of fossil seeds, which had weathered out of the 

 dark carbonaceous mud, were collected. It is the description 

 of these seeds and the remains of the Pleistocene cypress swamp 

 which forms the basis of the present paper. 



The hurricane — which did so much damage along the At- 

 lantic Sea Coast during the month of September — washed away 

 about seven feet of the end of the Point. This erosion did not 

 expose any new cypress stumps. The Point at the time of our 

 visit had a vertical face of approximately 15 feet with no slump- 

 ing at its base — due to the recent storm. There are several con- 

 trasting lithologic beds in this 15 foot vertical range and most 

 of these beds pinch out in an east and west direction. From all 

 aspects this swamp occupied a deep valley cut in the Eocene 

 sediments which was subsequently covered by reworked Eocene 

 material. 



1 Similar deposits are also found at many localities within the modern 

 range of the species. 



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