Deciduous Forest Formation 

 The forest consists of dominant forest trees whose crown is 

 close enough to shade the secondary layers beneath. If one 

 consults the forest map issued by the Geological Survey of New 

 Jersey in 1900, it will be seen that on the Navesink Highlands 

 there are 80 to 100 acres of forest to 100 acres of upland. The 

 trees which form the facies are most of them mature and already 

 show evidences of decay. The facies varies somewhat on different 

 portions of the bluff, but in the main, it consists of Castanea den- 

 tata (Marsh) Borkh., Querciis primis L., Q. vehitina Lam., Q. 

 alba L., Q. coccinea Wang, Q. rubra L., mentioned in the order 

 of their relative abundance, so that it maybe called the chestnut- 

 oak facies. Mixed with these trees and reaching a size equal to 

 the dominant trees occurs Hicoria {Carya^ glabra (Mill) Britt., 

 while of rare occurrence are Fagns americana Sweet, and Lirio- 

 dendron Tidipifera L, The almost entire absence of these two 

 trees seems to indicate that the climax forest of Castanea dentata 

 and Querais priims, etc. has not reached the most typic mesophytic 

 conditions where the beech and the tulip poplar are among the 

 most important elements of the facies. Other trees, occasionally 

 found, are Pinus rigida Mill, Betida popidifolia Marsh, B. Icnta 

 L., Popidus trenudoides Michx., and Liqtndambar Styracifliia L. 

 The prominence of the black oak, Qiierciis velntina, in the 

 chestnut-oak facies suggests an association described by Jennings * 

 on Presque Isle in Lake Erie, where the black oak consti- 

 tutes usually 85 to 95 per cent, of the primary layer of the 

 forest. At Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio, the peninsula is an 

 almost exact counterpart of the Querciis velutina habitat on 

 Presque Isle. In the North Haven sand plains of Connecticut 

 the black oak, although scattering, is yet the dominant tree, and 

 at Ypsilanti, Michigan, the arid slopes of a sandy bluff are char- 

 acterized as a black oak society by Brown. Cowles finds near 

 Chicago Quercus velutina predominating on the south slopes 

 of the established sand dunes and on the higher sandy 

 ridges and beaches of glacial origin. From this and other evi- 



* Jennings, Otlo E. A Botanical Survey of Presque Isle, Erie County, Pennsyl- 

 vania. Annals of the Carnegie Museum V : 325. 



