9. Site Description: 



Green Pond Savannah represents another significant variation of 

 the longleaf pine ( Pinus palustris ) savannah within the existing 

 spectrum of flatwood sites within Brunswick County and the North 

 Carolina coastal plain as a whole. The canopy is dominated by rela- 

 tively mature longleaf pines — some 20 to 25 cm DBH — over a low shrub 

 layer of sand myrtle ( Leiophyllum buxifolium ), either alone, or with 

 dwarf blueberry ( Vaccinium tenellum ) as a codominant» The shrub layer 

 is in turn underlain by a "herbaceous" layer containing creeping 

 blueberry (V, crassifoliam ) and wire-grass ( Aristida stricta ) as domi- 

 nants. 



Green Pond, which lies in the western, central portion of the 

 site (see accompanying topographic quad sheet), is a relatively steep- 

 walled limesink, one of the series of Sunny Point— Orton— Boiling 

 Springs LaJces sinks. The extreme clarity of the water and the white 

 sandy bottom of the pond tend to reflect aquatic vegetation (both 

 algae and vasculsu" plants), giving the water its "green" appearance. 

 There is very little vegetation in or around the pond itself, except- 

 ing the population of loose water-milfoil ( Myriophyllum laxum) within 

 the sink, probably at least partially due to the relative steep- 

 ness of the rim slope. The herbaceous and shrub layers of the savarn- 

 nah Eire much more open in the immediate vicinity of the pond, and large 

 patches of bare white sand are frequent. 



The site is bordered on the north by a pocosin community within 

 an adjacent swale area, and to the east and south by a mixed pines-- 

 hardwoods community which is transitional— smd also successional given 

 the absence of recent fire—between the savannah community and the 

 adjacent mixed bottomland hcirdwoods community which borders Orton 

 Creek, 



As with all of the Brunswick savannah sites, it is clesur, based 

 on observable evidences such as fire-scarred trunks, shrubs which are 

 predominantly clumped, and charred stumps, that frequent fire has been 

 largely responsible for the evolution and maintenance of the site in 

 its open, savemnah condition. 



