Introduction and General Discussion 



Tyrrell County, North Carolina is located on the south shore of the 

 Albemarle Sound between Washington County and the Alligator River. It 

 is an area of low elevation (0 to 17 feet) and little topographic relief 

 encompassing 399 square miles. About 55 percent of the county is wet- 

 land of swamp forest, pocosin, or marsh while the remaining upland is 

 mostly managed pine planatation or cultivated fields. The population of 

 about 5000 is supported by agriculture, logging, and fishing, and 

 although the standard of living does not seem as high as in the more 

 industrialized portions of the state, the citizens of Tyrrell County 

 still enjoy high quality life in terms of open space, clean air and 

 access to outdoor recreation. 



During the summer of 1980 a project was undertaken to develop 

 vegetation maps, locate potential natural areas, and further survey 

 those areas for the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program. Since very 

 little natural heritage information was available the first objective of 

 this project was a general familiarization with the entire county. This 

 was accomplished by ground reconnaissance and the use of orthophotoquad 

 aerial photographs. Virtually every road in the county was traveled, 

 many of them being nearly impassible farm or logging roads. In this way 

 shades and textures on the orthophotoquad maps could be matched with 

 actual vegetation types. Outlines of units of vegetation were marked on 

 the orthophotoquad maps for later transfer to the corresponding topo- 

 graphic sheets . One readily apparent problem with this technique 

 involved the age of the aerial photographs and subsequent extensive 

 changes in land use. For this reason considerable effort was devoted to 

 redrawing field boundaries and marking the extent of recent logging. 

 Despite the work involved, this effort has produced relatively accurate 

 information about the extent of recent land conversion in this county. 

 Eleven different plant community land use types were recognized and 

 mapped. These were: 



A) Fresh water marsh. These marshes are generally dominated by 

 cattail. Sawgrass is often a subdominant. 



B) Swamp forests. These consist of gum and some cypress. They 

 vary in age depending on the last logging. 



C) White cedar swamp forests. Areas that appear to have 50% or 

 greater dominance by Atlantic white cedar. Lower density 

 stands have been mapped as swamp forest. 



D) Pine-swamp hardwoods. Areas dominated by loblolly pine with a 

 subcanopy of black gum, sweet gum, and red maple. This associa- 

 tion is found in the slightly better drained portions of what 

 would otherwise be swamp forest. 



E) Pine-upland hardwoods. Old loblolly pines in association with 

 mature red oak, southern red oak, tulip poplar, and beech. 

 Very limited in extent due to conversion of this land to pine 

 plantation or agriculture. 



