VOLUME LXV NUMBER 6 
its 
BOTANICAL (44764 ce 
JUNE 1918 
SUCCESSIONS OF VEGETATION IN BOULDER PARK, 
COLORADO 
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE HULL BOTANICAL LABORATORY 238 
W. W. RoBBINS 
(WITH FOURTEEN FIGURES) 
Introduction 
This paper is concerned chiefly with the plant successions of 
the flood plains, lakes, and ponds of a mountain park. They 
culminate in a temporary meadow climax. Consideration is also 
given to the succession which begins on the xerophytic glacial 
gravels and passes through the characteristic and long persistent 
“dry grassland” stage also to a temporary meadow climax. There 
is also presented the interesting problem of the genetic relation of 
the meadow to the forests of aspen, lodgepole pine, and Engelmann 
spruce-balsam fir which border the open park. It should be stated 
that Boulder Park is typical, in its physiographic and vegetative 
development, of hundreds of such areas in the Rocky Mountain 
region. 
Boulder Park is located in Gilpin County, Colorado, about 
34 miles, in a straight line, west of Denver. The Divide of the 
main range of the Rocky Mountains is about 6 miles west; the 
Great Plains are about 18 miles east. Tolland, a small town near 
the middle of the Park, has an altitude of 8889 feet. The area 
falls within the montane zone (10). 
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