I 



Quartzipsamments, and to a much lesser extent, Typic Haplohumods, 

 are the usual soil types. 



The extent of this community, in a relatively intact state, 

 is not great within the county. The largest acreage vegetated 

 by sandhills occurs in the Orton — Boiling Springs Lakes area 

 and northward, between highway NC 8? and the Cape Fear River, 

 although notable examples of the community exist as isolated 

 ridges immediately west of Bolivia and elsewhere within the 

 county, 



D, Upland Hardv/ood Community 



Given the natural operative factors controlling vegetation 

 within the county (e.g., fire, hydroperiod, etc.), upland hardwood 

 communities are not extensive. However, with modern fire exclusion 

 and large-scale d!rainage efforts, many areas, such as bottomland 

 forest — upland forest ecotones, abandoned agricultural lands, and 

 various raan~disturbed sites, are apparently succeeding to a loblolly 

 pine--mixed hardwoods (especially sweetgum) assemblage. 



Natural uplajid hardwood sites in the county are largely restricted 

 to the well-drained levee soils of some of the smaller streams, and 

 in more extensive stand, to the downcut slopes and fluvial ridges 

 bordering the Cape Fear River and some of its tributaries along the 

 northern boundary of the county. Mixed oaks, especially southern 

 red oak ( Quercus falcata ) , white oak (Q, alba ) , and laurel oak, and 

 hickories ( Carya spp.) are the usual canopy dominants, over an open 

 shrub layer of various ericads, and a sparse herb layer. Other vari-> 

 ations among upland hardwood communities, such as the beech ( Fagus 

 grandifolia ) — -southern sugar maple ( Acer saccharum ssp. floridanum ) 



dominated community type of the Bryant Mill Greek — Greenbank Bluff 



1 

 area in extreme northwest Brunswick County, are rare , 



APPROACH AND METHODS 



The selection of sites to be investigated initially involved an exami- 

 nation of the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program's Brunswick County 

 computer element file, along with the corresponding topographic quad sheets. 



1 

 Kologiski (1977), however, notes that an 187O survey of the timber 



resources of the Green Swamp lists beech among the common timber species, 



